A Spirit of Courage
by Ruthie of the Wildcats
Summary: AU. Set after OoT. A century and a half after the death of the Hero of Time, Ganon still reigns with an iron fist. But a tiny, poor village at the edge of the land may be harboring Hyrule's only hope for freedom. Can Linkali triumph where Link failed?
1. Prologue: Death and Darkness

"Link! Look out!" Zelda screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth so that her words would better reach the furiously battling Hero. Her heart was racing in her chest fearfully as she watched the long-legged young man turn a nimble backflip and dart away from the incoming strike.

The sky overhead was dark and thick with masses of thunderclouds, whose black bellies snarled hungrily and flashed bright bolts of lightning over the battlefield. The air was heavy beneath them, as if their imposing weight were crushing the air in Hyrule down around its denizens. A storm was hovering over the warrior and his monstrous opponent, and as Zelda watched, the first few drops of rain began speeding down from on high. They fell slowly and in scattered amounts, only to swiftly pick up a vicious speed and force, until they were coming down in driving curtains. A sharp gust of chilly wind keened over the rubble-strewn ground, sending the raindrops slanting into the eyes of all present. Lightning stabbed the sky in blinding flashes, and the thunder that followed made the ground quake in fear.

Zelda felt her breath catch in her throat; it was hard to see her Hero as it were, and the brief glimpses she caught of him when the lightning flared did not set her heart at ease. He was stumbling slightly as he ran, and limping when he wasn't stumbling. He'd been injured before, while the war had been waged in the tower, and the frantic dash down to this new battleground had not improved his condition. The Princess could see that he was getting tired and weak, that his wounds were starting to drag him down. Her heart clenched painfully.

"Link, don't give up!" she cried, feeling her throat beginning to choke up. "He's weakening—I can sense it! You can do this! I believe in you!"

In a flash of lightning, she saw the Hero of Time spare her the briefest of glances over his shoulder before he returned his focus to the fight at hand. He was no more than ten feet away from her; she had seen the look of desperation in his impossibly dark blue eyes give way to a smoldering light of courage. In the darkness that followed, Zelda heard him sheathe the Master Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, and heard him fumble behind him for the bow strapped under his shield. There was nothing; then, a bright, yellow glow began to shine out in front of Link as the young Hero nocked a Light Arrow onto his bowstring. He aimed for the face of the monstrous boar-beast before him, and let fly. Ganon let out an earth-shattering roar of pain as the arrow connected with its mark, and tumbled onto his knees.

Pausing only enough to draw his sword once more, Link charged in and dealt the evil beast a series of rapid swipes to the tail—the weak point that Navi had eagerly pointed out at the battle's start. A shaft of furious lightning split the storm-darkened sky, and in the heartbeat of its flare, Zelda saw something that wrenched a horrified scream from somewhere deep with her. Ganon whirled on his brave assailant with the flat of one of his twin swords and flung him away with a solid blow to the chest. Link landed a good distance away with a choked yell. Zelda ran around the side to see if she could spot him, her heart thumping hard against her breastbone. She'd never imagined violence like this—at least not done towards her Hero. She brought herself up short, her hands clapped around her mouth fearfully, as she saw the dim outline of the young Hylian staggering to his feet once more. She saw the weary slump of his shoulders—how low he held his head, how labored his heaving breaths were, how painfully he seemed to move—and knew that he was quickly losing his strength.

The young woman bit her lower lip nervously. She knew that the Triforce of Courage gave Link some degree of protection against evil powers, as well as the unyielding bravery that he showed now. But she couldn't help but wonder if she had somehow underestimated the brutal strength of the Triforce of Power held by Ganon. Indeed, the Evil King seemed nigh unstoppable, despite the best efforts of the Hero limping around him.

Zelda followed Link behind the barrier, her heart tearing with every slow, painful step the boy took. She sniffled, and was startled to discover that rain was not the only thing streaming down her face. She was crying—crying for fear of her Hero and Hyrule, for the sorrow she felt to see him so battered, and for the awful dread that was building in her belly. Link stopped and turned to face Ganon once more. Lightning blasted the soggy battlefield, and Zelda saw that the Hero of Time was quivering weakly where he stood. She listened to him fumble about trying to sheathe the Master Sword, then slowly draw out his bow and fit an arrow to its string. A dim glow lit the Hylian youth from the front, but his arms dipped lower and lower as it grew brighter. The physical strain of creating a Light Arrow was sapping the needed strength from his body; he could barely hold his bow upright to aim it.

_Goddesses of Hyrule, help him!_ Zelda pleaded in her heart. Her sobbing gasps synced eerily with the labored draws of breath from the Hero in front of her. She leaned closer to him, her eyes huge, begging the Goddesses for mercy. Her heart broke when she saw the failing glow of the Light Arrow die out completely, and she heard Link drop his bow to the muddy ground at his feet. Ganon was creeping steadily closer, and the Hero stumbled away from his approach as fast as he could. Zelda ran alongside him, sniffling and wringing her hands anxiously.

"Link!" she squeaked, her throat almost too tight to speak. "Don't let him win! You can defeat him! I know you can! Don't give in!"

Again, she saw him turn to glance at her, and saw him dip his head in a trembling nod. Zelda felt as if she had been punched in the stomach by the trust and warmth in his tired eyes. He began limping back to the place where he had dropped the bow, snapping his fingers weakly and pointing in its direction. Navi hummed down obediently and illuminated the cast-aside weapon, though her blue glow was all but swallowed by the driving rain.

Link lifted the bow into his hands, and slowly laid an arrow against the string. Zelda saw a yellow bubble of light begin to form in front of him. Her heart leapt with joy as she realized that this arrow was gaining strength much faster than the one before it. Perhaps that brief moment of eye contact with her had given her Hero some extra strength. Whatever it was, though, it led to a fully-formed Light Arrow that connected furiously with Ganon's boar face. The monster toppled down, and Link struggled to unsheathe the Master Sword. Once it was in his shaking hands, the youth lumbered forwards and hurled himself at the Evil King with a weak cry. He struck once—fumbled the sword in his grasp—planted his feet—struck again—wobbled and caught himself—lifted his sword for a third strike—

"Get out of there!" Zelda shrieked, her heart now thundering a panicked beat in her chest. "Run! You don't have much time! Go! _Go!_" She could barely see her Hero, a smudge of dim light in a world of darkness. But she could clearly hear Ganon grunting and snorting and struggling to his feet. He was moving faster than Link could hope to, and Zelda nearly lost her mind when she heard him knock the brave warrior away as if he were nothing more than a bothersome flea. A thin scream tore free from her throat as she hitched up her skirts and dashed in the direction he had flown.

When she reached the place, Link was still on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Zelda knelt down and put her hand against the wall that separated them. She saw Navi hover close to the Hero's face, heard him retch and cough, watched drops of blood dot the ground. The Princess moaned softly at her courageous champion's fate and covered her face hopelessly. Just barely, she heard a quiet, weak voice whisper, "Haa…Huh." She looked up to see Link, head still down, pressing his hand against the barrier between them, his palm against hers. The Hero lifted his face to hers with painful slowness. A dark ring of purple surrounded his right eye, and his face was traced all over with more cuts than Zelda could count. Blood from his coughing fit streaked his chin, but he was _smiling!_ Smiling as if to comfort her, to tell her not to be afraid for him.

His dark blue eyes, though glazed and barely focused, were filled with warm encouragement. Zelda felt herself fall forward into those eyes, become lost in them. She wished there had been more time to speak to him before this battle had broken out, more time to tell him the words that lurked timidly in her heart. She wanted to tell him—oh, great Goddesses, she _wanted_—but she was too afraid of his reaction. What if he did not return the feelings? She wanted to believe that his eyes held a glow of something approaching affection, but she did not want to make assumptions. Her heart twisted and tore painfully at the incredible agony on his face, and at the gentle calm in his eyes despite his pain. Link's smile stretched across his bleeding face, a small light of hope in this dark night. He began pulling himself off the ground, supporting himself on the barrier between him and the Princess. Zelda kept her hand against his; though she could not feel his touch through the wall, it gave her some measure of hope to know that she was supporting him somehow.

Link gave her one long look before returning his focus to Ganon once more. Zelda caught her breath in her throat as she watched his trembling hands aim an arrow at the boar-beast's face. The weak glow of a Light Arrow was swallowed by a harsh blast of lightning that split the sky; in that instant, the two Hylians watched as Ganon's eyes slipped out of focus, and the Evil King dropped to his knees without even being struck. Zelda felt a burst of hope surge through her heart at the sight. "Link, I'll hold him for you!" she shouted. "Get ready to attack. We'll send this foul beast to a place he'll never escape from!"

She watched her Hero grip the Master Sword and stumble towards the stunned monster as fast as his shaky legs could carry him. This would be the end—at last, Link would be able to rest! Once Ganon was sealed away, Zelda would take the youth far away from this dark, dangerous place and treat his wounds. Then, perhaps, when he had recovered some of his strength, she could talk to him and tell him how she felt. Her heart began to lighten in her chest as she summoned her strength to pin Ganon down.

But as hard as she tried, she could not get a good enough grip on the Evil King to hold him down. She could feel a subtle push against her, as if he were resisting capture. She would pull back, call up more of her power, and try again, but each time Ganon would brush her aside. Again and again she tried, with no success. But how could that be? He was stunned, unconscious—he couldn't possibly be resisting her! Realization struck the Princess in a cold, harsh blow, and she clapped her hands to her mouth. _It's just an act! He's luring Link in!_

"Link!" she screeched, her voice rising to a frantic pitch. "Get back! Get away! Hurry! _Link!_"

She saw the youth hesitate, swaying on his feet at Ganon's head. He crouched low, bracing himself and raising his shield defensively. The silent minutes stretched thin, becoming hours, days; Ganon did not move to attack the Hero before him, remaining slumped on the ground. Zelda's heart was whirring in her chest, frantically begging Link to retreat to a safer place, but it seemed that her Hero was either too weak or to stubborn to flee. She bit her lip frantically, drawing blood, but she did not notice the pain.

The only sound was that of the falling raindrops, which pelted the combatants mercilessly and mingled with Zelda's free-flowing tears. The young woman placed a hand on the barrier, leaning in towards her Hero. "Link," she whispered, the loudest she could speak, "come back. Please, please…Come back where it's safer." She watched the young Hylian ease up out of his tense crouch, though she knew he had not heard her. Link stood at Ganon's cheek, eyeing his seemingly helpless opponent in a calculating way. She could see him wobbling as he stood; his strength was nearly gone, and soon it would be too much for him to even stay standing. He seemed to take each falling raindrop as a shove or a blow, and swayed on his feet with the force of them. He was weak and tired, and his body was nearly spent, but his indomitable courage and spirit kept him from submitting. Zelda sucked in her breath as she saw him draw both arms—for he was holding his sword in two hands—back to strike, and prayed fervently that her previous judgment of Ganon's state of consciousness was right.

Link's arms swept down slowly, the Master Sword cutting a glittering, glowing arc through the rain and the darkness. The blade inched towards Ganon's neck, its path wavering with its wielder's trembling hands. For a second, it appeared as though victory belonged to the Hero of Time, and that soon the Evil King's head would be rolling across the ground. But in the instant before the Master Sword struck flesh, the Triforce of Power on the back of the Evil King's hand began to glow white-hot in the darkness. Link balked, studying the weapon in his shaking hands, as if suspicious of it. Even from where she stood, Zelda could tell that something was wrong; the Master Sword seemed heavier in her Hero's hands, and its softly-glowing blade seemed to have lost some of its luster.

In those precious few seconds when the two youth were distracted, Ganon's eyes snapped open, and one of his powerful hands lashed out, catching Link across the chest. The Hylian was hurled through the air towards Zelda, and in midflight, the Master Sword slipped out of his grip. Hero and blade struck the same fragment of castle wall at much the same time, with very similar results.

Zelda wasn't sure which was louder: The high-pitched singing note of the Sword of Time breaking mid-blade, or the awful, crumbling crack as Link's neck was snapped.

"_NOOOOOOO!"_

The Princess gave voice to a thunderous, disbelieving wail as Ganon's dark laughter boomed out over the rumble of the retreating thunder. Link slid down the wall slowly to land in a limp huddle at the foot of it. The barrier fell, and Zelda dashed to her Hero's side. She took his head in her lap, desperately stroking his bloodied face with one hand while feeling his neck, wrist, and chest with the other. She found no pulse, and he made no movements as if he were breathing. "Link, no!" she whispered fearfully. "No! No! Don't—don't go! _Link!_" Fresh tears streamed down her face, dripping down into the sightless, open eyes of the Hero in her arms. Link stared blindly out into the pouring rain, his mouth dropped open the barest of inches; his expression was frozen in one of mild surprise, as if the suddenness with which he had hit the stone wall had startled him slightly. He was dead.

Zelda cursed herself for all that had happened. It was her fault she had been captured—she shouldn't have revealed herself in such an open place as a closed-door Temple. If she hadn't been taken away, Link wouldn't have come to save her, and he would never have been pulled into this battle, and he would still be _alive._ The Hylian brushed his cheek lightly with her hand, wincing at the sight of his blood staining her silken glove. The ground shook, and Zelda jerked her head up to see that Ganon was prowling towards her, his eyes bright with wild joy.

"_Ohoho! So the great Hero of Time is only mortal after all!"_ he thundered. Zelda would have sobbed in fear, but she found that she had no tears left in her body. She stared up at him as mute as the Hero in her lap had been in life. _"Now that he's gone, nothing stands between me and the power I seek!"_

A fear gripped Zelda, and she realized that Ganon was right. As she was shaking her head and opening her mouth to beg for mercy, she spotted a glint out of the corner of her eyes. The Master Sword lay fewer than twenty feet away, well within her grasp. If repaired and placed in the hands of a capable wielder, the sword could be Ganon's undoing. At the same time, however, if she took Link away and brought him to the right person, his body could be restored, and his spirit brought back into it. The Princess's eyes flashed from the broken blade to her broken Hero. There was no way she would be able to carry both the sword and Link away from Ganon.

She was going to have to choose.

But how could she possibly choose between a sword so important and a young man so dear? Zelda squeezed her eyes shut, her heart clenching painfully. _Goddess of Wisdom, guide me. Show me the path that is right._ She knelt there, eyes closed, listening to Ganon's steady approach and praying for her path to appear. It took a moment, as if the Spirit of Wisdom was just as conflicted as she was; then, Zelda felt a gentle pressure on her cheek, turning her head to the side. She opened her eyes, and saw that she was looking directly at the Master Sword, whose blade was now cleaned by the rain. It looked somewhat dull and lusterless, as if its energy had died with Link. Zelda felt a lump form in her throat, and she bit her tender lower lip, which had already endured much chewing this night. Her breath coming in shaky puffs, she bent her head and gave her Hero a gentle kiss on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Link," she murmured, her heart broken. Then, after placing his head on the ground with as much tenderness as should would if he were still alive, she unclipped the sheath from Link's back and strapped it to her own belt. She got up and began striding purposefully towards the broken sword, her face set like stone.

She heard Ganon's roar of protest and gathered up her skirts in one hand, running flat-out towards the Blade of Evil's Bane. The ground shook as the boar-beast pounded after her, and his bellows rent the sky. Zelda swooped down and grabbed both pieces of the Master Sword in her free hand without breaking her stride. She hurried towards the edge of the ground and flung herself into the empty air just as one of Ganon's massive hands swept the spot where her legs had been. The Evil King roared his frustration as the young woman escaped.

Zelda dropped the hand that was holding the bundle of her skirt. She made the signs one-handed as she fell through the air, praying that the magic would still work. Her luck held out; her palm was tingling with energy, and it cast a subtle blue light in the darkness. Zelda thrust her hand downwards, open-fisted, shouting, "Nayru's Love—protect me!" A prism of light formed around her body as she dropped, forming a secure cage of protection. The Princess took what felt like her first deep breath of relief in seven years, releasing it in a sad sigh. The ground zoomed closer and closer, but she no longer feared the drop—not with the power of the Goddess of Wisdom guarding her.

The crystal cage around Zelda took the worst of the impact, shattering like a dropped wine glass when it struck the ground beneath Ganon's tower. She stood, dusting herself off briskly with her free hand before gathering up her skirts and taking to her heels again. The pieces of the broken sword in her arm rattled and crashed together in counterpoint to the rhythm of her pounding feet. She did not know if Ganon would follow her, or if he viewed her and the Master Sword as harmless in their current states; she simply ran because her heart told her to flee. An image of Link's face hovered in front of her as she sprinted through the night—she saw the smile he had flashed at her, the grin of encouragement that had come from someone who should be receiving reassurance rather than giving it. It haunted her, crushed her already broken heart into tiny pieces.

Through the marketplace, which was crawling with ReDeads, ran the Princess. They shrieked, but Zelda was already too terrified of something else to even notice; their petrifying screams had no effect on her. Across the broken drawbridge, and out onto the open field, she bolted as if the hounds of Hell were at her heels. Hyrule was dark, and the ground squished as her feet struck it. Zelda could sense that the storm was passing in the opposite direction of her. The rain in her face was thinner, gentler, and the air before her seemed easier to breathe. She ran breathlessly, her heart an aching hole in her chest. Her legs were burning with cramps and fatigue, and her shoulder was sore from her deathgrip on the Master Sword. Still, she ran, pressing forward through the dark land; she was alone and vulnerable, but it scarcely seemed to bother her. Her blue eyes were wide and wild, dark with horror at all she had seen that night.

Zelda was less than half a mile away from the castle gates when she stumbled and fell. The Master Sword tumbled ahead of her; hilted half impaled the grass and stood up straight, while the smaller piece skidded until it struck the other part and was stopped. The sight of the legendary sword without anyone to wield it against the Evil King brought back Zelda's shoved-aside grief. The Princess of Hyrule threw back her head and gave voice to a keening wail that seemed to send the night ringing. Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks as she slumped down against the ground and cried. She howled her sorrow to the night like a Wolfos, mourning not only the loss of her Hero, but also the loss of hope for the kingdom that had once been hers.


	2. 1: Hyrule After the Hero

Linkali hoisted the bucket over her shoulder and reached for the doorknob. "We'll be back in a minute with your water, Mom," she promised, ruffling her little sister's hair with her free hand. After exchanging a glance with the young girl, the two of them stepped out the door and into the village.

The sun was climbing through the cloudy sky towards its zenith, and though the seasons were turning towards summer the land was actually quite temperate. The few brave souls who made the journey into Hyrule would often remark about how strangely cool the climate was, for even in the dog days of summer, many Hylians would go about comfortably in long sleeves and leggings. It was because of the weak sunlight, they said; Hyrule never got terribly warm because the sun was never bright and it was often hidden behind clouds. There seemed to be no way of changing it, and hence, no reason to complain about it. To the best of their knowledge, only one person in Hyrule was old enough to remember a different climate, but it was useless trying to talk to her.

For whatever it was worth, Linkali had seen fit to wear long sleeves that day, for though there was sunlight, there wasn't much warmth to be had from it. She had on a clean, white cotton shirt, whose sleeves were tucked neatly into her sturdy leather, fingerless gloves, and whose shirttails were tucked into a pair of leather breeches. Her boots stopped just below her knees, and were fairly new—a gift she had only received because her previous pair had been worn out to the point that they couldn't even be salvaged for scrap leather. Her belt was a simple strap that she wore on a slant, hung with a few pouches and fastened with a beaten steel buckle that Linkali had scratched a downward-pointing triangle onto for decorative purposes. The young woman also wore a short, soft, green mantle around her shoulders, with a wide, loose collar and a long, trailing hood; stitched onto the front, for simple decoration, was a yellow _X_ beneath a horizontal line of the same color. Linkali's hooded caplet was well-known around the village, for she had worn it nearly every day since receiving it several years ago, and its age was finally starting to show around the seams.

Linkali, who made it a point to respond only to the shortened name of "Lin", was a strong young woman of seventeen years. She was taller than most of the other girls her age in the village, a fact which her mother often credited to drinking plenty of milk as she had grown. She was lean—almost athletic—of build, with strong, supple limbs and sure hands. Her face, which was somewhat oval-shaped with pleasant features, had a seemingly constant expression of quiet, gentle certainty—a look truly befitting someone with her nature. Her slender-pointed ears were pierced twice with silver hoops, and her skin was somewhat pale. Her long, straight hair was a curious shade of light brown—though it was definitely brown, in some lighting, it had an almost golden sheen to it—and it was cut in such a way that two tufts of bangs stuck out over her forehead, while the longer pieces of it hung down behind her in a ponytail.

Perhaps the young woman's most attention-snaring feature was her startling eyes. They were blue—not entirely unusual, since her father was also blue-eyed—but they were a shade of the color that no one in her family could find in their lineage. Linkali's eyes were as dark and deep as the evening sky, though when something humorous caught them they seemed to grow bright and flash with happiness. They were soul-eyes, people said—the kind of eyes that could hide nothing; Lin's true feelings always showed up in her eyes, whether she wanted them to or not, and it was often said that someone who knew her well enough would be able to read her very thoughts just by gazing into her eyes.

"Dad says it's going to rain tonight," the young girl walking beside Linkali piped up. Lin looked down at her sister. Talina—who preferred, but rarely insisted on, being called "Tali"—was five years younger than Lin. She was much shorter than her sister, though it was clear from the size of her hands and feet that she still had much growing left to do. Her hair was a shaggy mess of brown strands, styled almost identically to that of Lin. Talina tended to copy the older girl in everything she did; however, she could not imitate her older sister's gaze, for while Linkali sported eyes of dark blue, Tali's were an equally deep shade of brown.

"Well, Dad does have a good sense for these things," Lin admitted. "Ever since he broke his arm a few years back, he says that his shoulder twinges whenever a storm's on its way."

"And he's usually right, too!" Tali glanced in the direction of the well, which was located in the center of the village common. "Hey, who's that over there, Lin? Do you know them?"

Linkali paused, resting her free hand on her sister's shoulder to bring them both to a stop. Though villages were generally considered to be safe havens, there was always the occasional monster who managed to make their way in to cause trouble. Talina took a cautious step back and edged around so that she was standing slightly behind her older sister. Linkali approached the figure in the common with care, lowering her guard only when she saw that they were leaning casually against the stone rim of the well. Monsters never leaned. They might crouch or sit or stand, but they never leaned against anything; they always held a tense, predatory posture. Still, Lin stayed in front of her sister until the man spoke to her.

"I am a traveler looking for a place for rest," he said. Though he spoke Hylian—the language of the land—his word choice and sentence structure were somewhat unusual. "Would I find it here in this village?"

"In Kokoria? I don't see why not, if you're an honest man." Linkali attached the bucket to the rope and lowered it into the darkness of the well. Talina plunked herself down on the stone rim of the well and began kicking her heels against the sides of it.

"Kokoria," the traveler repeated, sounding the village name out carefully. "That is an interesting name for a village. Is it very old?"

"One hundred and fifty years," Lin replied honestly.

"It looks to be a small place, too."

"It started out small. In the days of its founding, nobody wanted to leave their own village to build a new place to live, so Kokoria began with a population of only fifteen. These days, though, we number thirty-five, all told. There used to be more people," Linkali admitted, tugging the bucket-line to and fro. "But, well…things have happened." She did not finish her sentence ambiguously or in any way that would prompt the man to question further; she made it a statement of fact.

"What sorts of things?" the man asked curiously, either failing to notice or ignoring the definitive way Lin had ended her words. Linkali stopped toying with the rope, and Talina's feet fell still against the side of the well. "Has there been a sickness?"

Linkali sighed. "If you hadn't already told me that you were a traveler, sir," she said softly, gazing into the black heart of the well, "I certainly would have guessed it by now. No, there is no sickness here—not that I know of, at least." And she left it at that.

"Then why has this village's population declined of late? Has there been a war, or some fighting?"

Linkali fished the bucket out of the well, groaning on the inside. It figured that _she_ would have to be the one to answer this man's questions. He obviously hadn't spoken to many Hylians of late; otherwise, he would have accepted her blatant unwillingness to answer him directly and would have stopped pressing for information. But here he stood, seeking answers and prying into things like an undisciplined child. She knew she shouldn't blame him, but he was making the situation very uncomfortable for her.

"Sir," the young woman said, struggling not to sound terse or agitated, "that is not a question that can be freely answered. At least, it is not within my rights to answer it. You are more than welcome to seek out the village leader—his name is Gotari, and he lives with his wife and son in that house—though he may not give you any more information than I have." She pointed, and the man nodded. "We do have an inn in Kokoria, and you can find it over there." She shifted her finger to the left, indicating the building. Without another word, she returned her attention fully to the bucket swinging in front of her.

"You seem troubled by something," the traveler noted, sounding sympathetic. He looked between the two sisters, neither of whom would meet his eye. "Both of you do. Why? Is it something to do with the number of people who have gone out from your village?" He laid a hand on the bow around his shoulders. "If there is a monster terrorizing this place, then I will gladly stand against it."

Linkali shook her head, smiling a little grimly. "There is no monster, sir, and even if there were, we would be able to take care of it for ourselves," she informed him. "I have told you all I can. You may seek out Gotari if you like, and perhaps he can better satisfy your curiosity."

"Very well." The man clearly looked confused and sympathetic, but Linkali's stern gaze seemed to burn the words _Leave, if you don't mind_ into his head. He nodded once to the two girls, and took his leave of them, heading in the direction of Gotari's house. Linkali watched him leave, resting a gentle hand on her sister's knees.

"He didn't mean to remind you of what happened," she murmured.

"I'm glad you didn't tell him." Tali shook her head briskly. As if that rid her of the saddening memories, she asked in a cheerful voice, "He sure asked a lot of questions, didn't he?"

"A lot of outsiders do," Lin responded. "But, they learn in time that Hyrule is not a place where free-speakers and question-askers prosper. Not that it's a bad place to live—it just takes getting used to, and it takes a while to learn the rules."

"And some people never learn, right, Lin?"

"Exactly." Linkali let the bucket she had filled come to rest on the rim of the well with a solid _thunk_. She and Tali both peered inside, frowning at how little water filled it. "Think we should give it a second go?"

"Did we promise Mom a full bucket?" Talina asked, looking up at her sister's face. Linkali stared at the half-full pail for a minute more, then tied it back in and sent it down for another go. The spring had been a dry one; hence, much rope had to be unwound before the sisters heard the characteristic splash of the bucket striking water. Linkali gripped the rope and began playing it deftly in order to coax her bucket to pick up more water.

"We didn't," she admitted, "but I think it would be nice if we could manage it, don't you?" Tali nodded and resumed kicking the sides of the well. A comfortable silence stretched between the two of them.

Finally, Talina tapped her sister's shoulder and pointed to one of the houses closest to the center of the village. Linkali followed Tali's finger to a small home that, like most of the buildings in the village, looked as if it could use a fresh coat of paint and a few new patches of roof. It was a well known house—it was the home of the village's founder, who was remarkably still alive after so many years. "The Woman of Sighs isn't out today," she noted.

Linkali paused, blinking in silent thought. The bucket was forgotten for the moment. "Where did you hear her called _that_?" she asked suspiciously. Talina shrugged.

"I overheard you and Bartal talking about her one day," she replied, kicking her heels against the stone sides of the well. "That's what you guys called her." Linkali hesitated again, the corner of her mouth quirking up.

"…Bartal and I say a lot of things you're not necessarily supposed to repeat," she told her younger sister bluntly. "That being one of them. For the record, though, her name is Aldez."

"Oh, I know that," Talina pointed out, somewhat off-handedly. She thumped her heels against the well, bouncing from side to side with the rhythm she created. Lin smirked as she reeled the bucket in. "But what you call her makes a lot of sense—she really does sigh a lot."

"Yes, but if Mom and Dad heard you calling her that, you'd land yourself in a world of trouble for disrespecting the village founder," she threatened, jabbing Tali in the ribs. The girl giggled and reeled from her perch, landing in the soft grass beside the well. "You'd wish the Evil King had gotten you instead, you'd be in so deep!"

While Talina pushed herself up, Linkali looked into the bucket again. She shrugged. "Well, it's not much more than we got up the first time," she explained. "But it's better than nothing, and we promised Mom we'd have the water back soon."

"The village is quiet today," Tali noted softly, gazing up and around the small town. Linkali nodded as she set the bucket down beside the well. "Nobody's outside."

"Well, the clouds're getting thicker, so most people are probably bracing for the rain," Lin pointed out, jerking her thumb upwards. Indeed, the clouds that had covered the heavens in a gauzy layer had grown darker and more intimidating in appearance; it looks as if the storm would break in a matter of hours. The air was starting to feel heavier as well, as if the deepening clouds were pressing down upon the land. Linkali did not enjoy heavy rainstorms; they had terrified her when she had been younger (and, truthfully, she still jerked every time thunder shook the ground, and flinched when lightning streaked across the sky—but then again, who didn't?).

Just as Lin and Tali were heading back in the direction of their home, a wild, drawn-out yell split the air around them. The sisters froze, with Linkali jumping protectively in front of the younger girl and tensing warily; then, they caught sight of the noise's source, something that, for the first few moments after its appearance, kept them in stunned silence.

A young man about Linkali's age and size was speeding through the village square astride a massive, shaggy-furred dog. The canine was about as tall as Talina, and its paws were as big as dinner plates. It looked somewhat wolfish, with a thick muzzle, perked ears, bushy tail, and a heavy ruff of snow-white fur about its neck; its pelt was black, with white on its muzzle, chest, belly, and lower legs. The huge dog bucked like an unbroken horse, barking and panting roughly as it bolted through the village. The youth on its back was letting off gleeful hollers and yelps as he rode the creature like a horse, holding on tightly to its long, furry ruff. One hand punched the air exuberantly, and his neck whipped back and forth.

As the dog-rider spurred his unwilling steed away, Talina looked up at her sister, who was doubled over laughing. "W-was that Bartal?" she asked, still not completely believing what she had just seen.

Linkali wiped tears of laughter from her eyes and nodded. "Who else would do something like that?" Shaking her head slowly, she asked, "Be a big girl and take this water back to Mom for me?"

"Sure." Tali grabbed the bucket in both hands and hauled it up until it was in her arms. "Want me to tell her you and Bartal went off together?"

"Can you?" Lin's mind was edging closer and closer to the young man whose giddy shouts were now fading into the distance. "'Cause something tells me this dork's mother isn't going to get to him fast enough. Thanks, Tali." She crouched down and gave the younger girl a loving kiss on the forehead, then sprinted off in the direction the massive dog had taken.

Linkali's search led her to the outskirts of the village, to the space between the last buildings and the rock wall that surrounded Kokoria. She did not find the dog, but she _did_ find Bartal lying in a semiconscious heap at the roots of a towering oak tree with yellow-veined leaves. The Hylian youth stood over her friend, hands on her hips, shaking her head slowly while she waited for him to come to himself. She did not worry at all about a possible injury; the boy's skull was doubtlessly thick enough to survive impact with an attacking Rogon. He was only stunned, though Lin was sure that most people would have been knocked out completely by half the things that left Bartal merely dazed.

After a few moments, Bartal's amber-brown eyes blinked away their cloudy glaze, and the boy shook his head firmly. Bartal and Linkali had known each other longer than either of them had known anyone else; neither could remember a time when they had not been friends. (They _would_ say that they'd known each other their entire lives, but Bartal was slightly older, meaning that there was about two months of his life wherein he had _not_ known Linkali.) They were a perfectly mismatched pair: Lin was collected and tended to be serious, while Bartal was a roguish goof-off who didn't seem to have a care in the world. The two of them walking together, joking around and pushing each other down, was a common sight in Kokoria Village. They were known for their reckless, often dangerous, antics, and for the trouble they tended to cause when together. (Linkali might be the perfect, responsible role model on her own or with her sister, but when coupled with Bartal, she became just as much of a wild daredevil as he was.)

Though it did not show at the moment, Bartal was Linkali's equal in height, with a few added inches in his favor. He was built in much the same way, too—lean and tall, but with enough muscle to get him through life. His hair was an unruly mop, black as coal and shaggy as the dog he had just finished riding. He was darker-skinned than either Lin or her sister, although many would still say that he was pale of complexion. He wore a long-sleeved gray shirt and pair of black leggings, with a green tunic overtop; the sleeves and pants of his underclothes were tucked into his leather gauntlets and boots, respectively. He had two belts as opposed to Lin's one: The first went around his hips, while the other buckled across his chest. His long, pointed ears were not pierced, although he did have a crescent-shaped nick midway along the bottom of his left ear. Curiously, he also wore a single pauldron on his left shoulder, which had been passed down through his family over generations. The lone piece of armor was dinged from many of Bartal's escapades, and the inlaid pattern on it had been all but worn away with age; the only design element to remain was that of four red rectangles arranged in groups of two, one across from another.

When Bartal realized who was standing before him, he laughed. "If you were hoping for a ride on ol' Ganga, you're outta luck," he told her. "That dog runs like the wind and leaps like a deer. I bet he's miles away now."

"Bartal, you're an idiot," Linkali said, pinching up the skin of her forehead in a gesture of frustration. The other Hylian merely laughed loudly and held out his hand. With feigned reluctance, Lin took hold and helped haul the boy to his feet again. "Why were you riding the goatdog?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Bartal muttered in reply, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. Those words seemed to be his catchphrase; he uttered the sentence so frequently that many villagers would often beat him to the punch and say it before he had the chance to. He had a reputation for being a clown, and his cheerful nature and comical antics never failed to amuse. Linkali figured that was why she enjoyed his company so much; there was never a dull moment with Bartal around.

"You know what else sounds like a good idea?" Lin asked, raising her finger like a disciplining teacher. Bartal cocked his head to the side.

"Hillboarding?" he offered. Linkali hesitated. "Oho! I see how it is! You were planning some snide remark, but I actually said something that appealed to you more than sarcasm!"

Linkali scoffed as her friend wrapped an arm around her waist and began dragging her beside him as he walked back into the village. "I don't see how a responsible girl like me can get so easily wrapped up in your immature, dangerous sports," she growled, though there was a gilded edge of concealed laughter to her words. "As you like it, Bartal—let me get my board, and I'll meet you at the trailhead."

"Why don't you bring Tali along this time?" Bartal asked.

"I'm not letting my sister do the kinds of reckless things we do," Linkali replied.

"Who says hillboarding is reckless?"

"Hmm, you're right. Sliding down steep, uneven, grassy hills on wooden planks with polished undersides is totally not a reckless activity. All those broken wrists we've suffered in the past doing this kind of thing were just freak accidents."

Bartal rolled his eyes. "You need to lighten up with Tali. You think I'm this protective of Coren?"

"Coren's your brother. Tali's my sister. There's a difference."

"Eh, I don't really see one. Well-p, hurry back!" With that, Bartal released the girl. Lin darted off in the direction of her home, a grin stretching up the corners of her mouth.

Hillboarding was a sport of Bartal's own making. It had started off as one of his usual harebrained schemes—bringing split logs down from the forest above the village by riding them like toboggans—but he found that he enjoyed the thrill so much that he decided to refine it. Granted, it was still far from safe, but that did not stop the boy or his female friend from heading out and practicing it with hair-whitening frequency. Linkali swiftly grabbed her board—which was nothing more than a wooden plank with one side heavily polished—and ran back the way she had come, taking a different turn that led her up the side of the grass-covered rock wall outside the village. Bartal was waiting for her, a board of his own tucked under one arm. Together, the two friends made the climb to the top of the slope. Once there, they threw their boards smooth-side down and each took a running leap onto them. The hillside blurred around them as the two hillboarders quickly picked up vicious speed.

Linkali bent her knees and strove to keep her weight centered on her board. She felt her heart begin to race excitedly in her chest, and narrowed her dark blue eyes against the first few drops of rain that began to fall. The drops were gentle for now, falling intermittently from the sky; Lin knew that before the sun had set, the storm would be going at full force. Though she knew with stronger rain came an increased risk of fall and injury—both from the decreased visibility and from the slipperiness of the grass—the risk rather excited her. The green hood on her mantle flapped and snapped behind her like a flag in the breeze as she accelerated rapidly.

When she gauged that she had gathered enough speed, Linkali stomped the back end of her board—which had been steam-curved for twenty Rupees by the village spearmaker—and leapt into the air. Her board shot forward, hit a bump on the hill, and flew up and around; it completed its circle and slid underneath Lin just as her feet were about to hit the ground. She heard an impressed whistle from Bartal.

"Nicely done!" he congratulated. Linkali grinned. Her teeth were white and straight, though there was a small gap between the two front ones.

"Thank you. Now, can you imagine my sister doing that?" Lin laughed, shaking her head. "This is reckless, Bartal!"

"Hah!" Bartal scoffed. "Yeah, right. This isn't reckless, this is _fun_!" He crouched low and shot up the side of a small knoll, shifting his weight back to keep from streaking too far forwards. The youth gripped the edge of his board and pulled his feet away from it; for a brief moment, he hung in the air. Then, just as swiftly as he'd gone up, he began to fall. Bartal moved quickly and smoothly, placing the board back under his feet just in the nick of time.

Linkali's eyes narrowed calculatingly. "Really? You seem to be confused. Perhaps I should"—she leaned downhill to pick up speed, then swerved in front of Bartal, nearly startling him into falling; from there, she made a wide pass behind him and finished at his side once more—"educate you!"

"You couldn't educate a block of wood, Lin!" Bartal taunted.

Linkali cut to the side to avoid a dip in her path, then swept back around beside her friend. "Is that so? I'll have you know I once educated a block of wood into holding a door open for me when I didn't have the hands free to do it myself."

Bartal carved sideways and rode his board up the side of a long, sloping rise. He planted one hand at the top of the ridge—keeping the other firmly on his board—posed with a goofy grin, then slid back down gracefully. Lin leaned back to cut her speed while she waited for him to catch up. "That's not education. That's called 'making a doorstop'!"

"Well, either way, you and the average block of wood tend to share the same level of mental acuity," Linkali shot back.

"Mental awhattity?"

"_Acuity_. It's a noun. It means the sharpness of something." Lin hunkered down, shooting herself off the top of a rise as Bartal had done earlier. She contemplated turning a flip, but decided she did not have enough air, and landed without attempting any tricks.

"Oh." The boy nodded slowly, digesting this new knowledge. He paused, frowned, then shouted "Hey!" as he realized just how backhanded her remark had been.

Bartal crouched low on his board, streaking after Linkali, who was gliding down the hill and laughing uproariously. The two of them wove around each other down the slope, turning as many jumps and tricks as they could. They reached the bottom, skidding on the long edges of their boards, as the rain began to pick up force.

Linkali picked up her board and braced one end of it on the ground. Her heart was hammering, and her legs were shaking slightly; she felt, as she always did after a hillboarding run, as if she had cheated Death yet again. She turned her face skyward, allowing the gentle rain to wash the beading sweat from her face. When she heard Bartal calling her back towards the trailhead, she snagged her board and trotted after him.

"It's not safe to stay outside the village for too long," the boy told her. Lin nodded. "Yeah, I figured you would know that from what happened to Tali." There was a catch in his voice, barely audible, as he added, "And my dad…"

Linkali was silent for a few moments as she padded after her friend. She studied his face for a second, then asked quietly, "I know it's been a while, but have you heard anything about him?" Bartal shook his head.

"No, not since he was taken to add to the Evil King's army," he replied. "And that was four years ago, almost five. For all I know, he could be dead, or turned into a Stalfos with no memory of Kokoria, or something just as bad." He looked at Lin. "And he's not the only one who was taken, too. Gotari's elder son was stolen as well, and Korlan, and Lohoran, Italtal, Jutari…all because they stood outside the village for too long on the wrong night."

"And all of Tali's friends, too," Linkali muttered with a shiver. "Although, they weren't taken, just slain on sight. Honestly, you can never tell if a monster is there to take you to Ganon's tower, or if it's only waiting to feel your blood on its claws."

"Well, there's really nothing we can do about it," Bartal told her simply, a sad smile crossing his face. "These things are just like the tributes we have to pay to the Evil King—we can't really change them, so we just have to accept them." Though his words were spoken with enough defeat, his amber eyes sparked with secret knowledge. It was knowledge that Linkali shared, but just like the reason behind Kokoria's declining numbers, it was not information to be discussed out in the open air.

* * *

The two young Hylians went hillboarding until well past sunset, by which point they were exhausted, soaked to the marrow and sore from their numerous slips and failed jumps. Linkali was the one who called it a day first, after she narrowly avoided falling with her arm at an unlucky angle. Bartal was quick to agree. After all, with the grass as slick as it was, neither of the two youth could go more than twenty feet without their boards flying out from under them; Lin's board was actually waiting for her at the bottom of the hill, because she hadn't been able to get her hands around in time to grab it before it got away.

She invited Bartal over for dinner, but the boy declined, saying that his mother was likely worried out of her mind. Lin knew that the story would probably be the same with her mother, and she hurried back to her house after giving her friend a tight hug of farewell.

Before she stepped inside, Linkali paused with one hand resting on the doorknob of her home. She gazed up at the storm-black sky above her. The rain was pouring in sheets now, filling the air with its wet, murmuring patter. The drops struck her face with stinging force; as she had predicted, the storm had picked up ferocity the longer it had gone. The tired Hylian youth blinked against the falling rain, flexing her stiff muscles gently as she stood. Wind was hissing above her now, driving the raindrops at angles as they flew through the darkness.

Linkali shivered at the strange feeling that came over her, the feeling that somehow, she had seen and felt these things before. It was an inexplicable sensation, one that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Her heart began beating harder, pounding against her breastbone forcefully in the dark; she found it harder to breathe, as if her ribs were made of heavy iron and her lungs were made of paper. Her whole body tingled with something like anticipation. Lin knew that she had been in this situation before now, but she could not think of when. What she did know, though, was that there was a powerful feeling of dread welling up inside of her, a fear of something she could not see but knew was coming for her all the same. She wanted to flee, but found she could not; whatever was coming after her had pinned her on the spot.

Suddenly, with a sizzling crash, lightning split the sky above her, tearing a white-hot wound through the dark skin of the clouds. Linkali jumped half a foot in the air, mute with panic at not only the sound of the thunder, but also the strange silhouette she had seen rearing above her. Looking back later, the young woman would realize that it had been nothing more than the windmill at the edge of the village; but at the instant, the darkened form had looked like nothing if not a powerful beast with its heart set on her demise. Linkali fumbled with the knob in her hand, breathless with fear, until she finally managed to yank the door open and leap inside. She slammed it behind her and pressed her back firmly against it, panting for breath.

The golden glow from the kitchen calmed the Hylian down, soothing away the strange fear that the storm had burned into her mind. Linkali released her breath in a sigh. "I'm home!" she shouted cheerfully.

"Goodness, Lin," her father called from around the corner, "if you hadn't said anything, we would never have known you were there! Could you slam the door a little louder next time, so we know when you're coming and going?"

"Sorry, Dad." Linkali stripped off her soaked clothing then and there before gathering it up and prancing up to her room in the loft. "I'm going to get changed before dinner. You were right about the weather, though—it's raining cats and dogs out there!"

As she bounded light-footed up the stairs, Linkali pushed the déjà-vu out of her head. It was an irrational thought, and a sensation that had no place in her life; the Hylian girl was a woman of reason and sensibility. She hung up her dripping clothes to dry and changed into something fresh. After a brief hesitation, she reluctantly combed through her tangled, wet hair, which was knotted with leaves and blades of grass from the many times she had fallen. Then, looking much neater and saner, Lin bounded back down the stairs and took her place at the dinner table among her family.


	3. 2: Uncanny Courage

The thunderstorm raged all that night, flashing and roaring like some angry beast outside the windows. Rain hissed and lashed against the glass panes, and the trees' dark figures whipped in the wind. Though storms of this severity were not at all unusual in Ganon's kingdom, they were unusual for this time of year; thunderstorm season was generally regarded as being late summer into early autumn. The village of Kokoria battened down its hatches and hunkered down against the heavy rain, standing, as it had for a century and a half, against forces that tried to tear it apart.

Linkali tried hard not to be too shaken up by the storm outside her window, but as the night wore on and the lightning did not cease, she took her lantern downstairs and went in search of a bedmate. Though she had long since given up her old doll (Tali had swiftly snatched it up, and continued to sleep with it still), the young Hylian woman was not at all opposed to welcoming a furry friend under the covers on nights like this. She padded softly into the darkened kitchen—for it was past midnight, and her parents had gone to bed—and was rewarded when she spotted a shadow in the orange glow of the potbellied stove. Creeping quietly towards it, Lin crouched down and rubbed behind the shape's pointed ear. "Russie," she whispered, "how would you like to sleep with me tonight?" Her question was answered with a drowsy mew, and a brush of whiskers and fur against her hand.

Russie was Linkali's cat, though her parents generally refused to acknowledge the animal's existence in their home. She was the daughter of a neighbor's barn cat; Lin had secretly purchased her for ten Rupees after she'd been weaned. Russie had lived in the loft with Linkali, hidden away and known only to Lin and Tali, for a number of months before she had exposed herself by sneaking out and pouncing on a rat in the middle of the kitchen while Lin's mother was cooking dinner. The girl's parents had tried repeatedly to remove the cat from their home, but each time, Russie had come back purring and rubbing her cheek on the furniture. She was a sweet-natured cat, with a seemingly tireless amount of patience and forgiveness in her heart; Linkali loved her dearly. Her parents, after seeing that there was no getting rid of Russie, grudgingly allowed the animal to live with them, though they usually ignored her and left all care up to their oldest daughter.

Linkali scooped her cat up, readjusted her grip on her lantern, and made her way back up to her room. Russie purred lovingly in the gentle, one-armed grasp, and bumped her head against the young woman's jaw affectionately. Back up in her room, Linkali set Russie down in her bed. She put the lantern on her bedside table and curled her body around the sleepy, rumbling cat, propping herself up with one arm. The red-brown tabby rubbed her cheek against her owner's and meowed her happiness. "You like being up here with me, don't you, Russ?" Lin murmured, pressing her nose down on the top of her cat's head. "You're like a furry little heat-ReDead; you latch onto something warm and you suck all the heat right out of them."

Thunder ripped through the night, causing Linkali to jerk fearfully and move to sweep Russie closer. The cat mewed in protest and set her claws in the sheets. The Hylian youth breathed out a quiet sigh, a little embarrassed at how startled she'd been. "Well, maybe now that you're here, I can get some sleep," she muttered, and began pulling up her covers. Russie rose and padded closer to her chest, curling up there and closing her amber eyes. Linkali blew out the lantern, rested her head on the pillow, and closed her eyes. Her left hand rested on Russie's soft coat, swirling from time to time over the neat tabby stripes. Every time the lightning flared or the thunder boomed, her fingers would jerk, even after she had fallen asleep.

* * *

"Lin, you look a little bored."

Linkali glanced up from the pasture of goats to see Bartal approaching, with his younger brother Coren in tow. Coren was a remarkable image of his older brother, having the same face, hair, and eyes, though his expression rarely showed the same carefree grin that Bartal's did; the younger boy had not been able to fully recover emotionally from the loss of their father four years ago. He was much quieter, much more careful—though given enough provocation, he could be just as adventuresome. Though Bartal and Linkali were the best of friends, their younger siblings were not. No one really got close to Tali, actually; many villagers secretly held the belief that she was bad luck—after all, every young girl who befriended her had been struck down by the monsters of the field—and Coren was no exception.

"I'm not bored, Bartal," Lin replied, resting her feet on the shoulders of a grazing goat. "But I could use some entertainment."

"Wanna see me ride Ganga again?" Bartal queried, jerking his thumb at the huge, black-and-white dog lying nearby. As if sensing the youth's motives, Ganga raised his head and wrinkled his nose with a short growl. Linkali laughed.

"I think if you go within two feet of that dog, he'll bite your hand off," she told him. Bartal shrugged and began walking towards the fence where his friend perched. His steps led him towards Ganga, who only showed more of his teeth as the Hylian neared. Bartal whistled a command and gave the accompanying hand gesture; Ganga, who had been trained to obey everyone in the village, unwillingly laid his head back down on his paws.

"Goddesses, what a grumpy animal!" Bartal muttered as he took up a seat on the fence beside Linkali. "They say that dogs are the most unconditionally loving creatures on the planet—but I swear, that one holds a grudge!"

"That's why I like cats," Linkali responded simply, winking at him. She turned her eyes back to the herd and spotted one of the goats beginning to wander. She whistled, causing Ganga to jump to his feet in readiness. "Ganga, come by," she ordered in a lilting voice, pointing to the straggler. The massive canine got to work immediately, trotting up behind the wayward goat and herding it back with the group. "That'll do. Good boy." Ganga padded back to the depression in the grass where he had been lying and flopped down to rest again.

"Don't you hate when Gotari puts you on goat duty?" Bartal asked. Linkali shrugged. "I mean, you'd think that the village leader could mind his own stock, wouldn't you? Instead, he has to make every young person in the village take turns leading them out to pasture and bringing them back home again."

"Well, for starters, the goats don't belong to _him_," Lin explained. "They're the property of the whole village. We all help care for them, and so we all get a share of the milk, meat, and fur they produce." She twirled the hem of her mantle between her thumb and forefinger. "My mother made me this with our share of the fur one year. She dyed it, spun it, and wove it herself. And second off, it's our responsibility because most of the adults have other trades and crafts that keep them busy."

Bartal sighed, rolling his eyes and making jabbering motions with his hand. "I know, I know," he said, bringing one knee up to his chest and hugging it there. "Doesn't make goat duty any more fun, though."

"Which is why I'm glad you're here." Linkali reached over and jabbed Bartal playfully in the ribs, wriggling her fingers to catch the ticklish places. The Hylian boy laughed, and after a few minutes of vicious tickle-stabs from Lin, he tumbled to the ground among the goats with a soft grunt. Linkali's footstool bleated indignantly and ambled away, leaving the girl to giggle at her fallen friend.

"So, after you're done here, what do you say we go do something fun?" Bartal asked, folding his arms behind his head in a carefree manner.

"Did you have anything in mind?" Linkali queried, keeping one eye on the goats. Bartal shrugged.

"We could always poke around the fishpool, or switch around peoples' laundry."

"I'm not really in the mood for petty mischief today."

"How about foolhardy, brash adventure?" Bartal offered. "Sports and games that risk life and limb?"

"Bartal, we went hillboarding in a thunderstorm last night," Linkali reminded him bluntly. "I say we give the bruises a chance to fade before we go doing something else—Ganga! Away to me!" she added with a whistle, jabbing her finger in the direction of a few straying goats.

Ganga pounced up and bounded around to redirect them back to the fold. Linkali directed him with a series of sharp, piercing whistles, just as she had been taught by Gotari all those years ago. The muscular dog obeyed her every command, moving smoothly and surprisingly gracefully, given his large frame and hefty paws. Visitors to Kokoria were often taken aback by not only the goatdog's immense size, but also his gentle nature and his unwavering obedience (although those who resided within Kokoria knew that Ganga played favorites, and would often carry out the commands of one youth more completely than those of another; he might be a gentle giant, but that didn't mean he couldn't take an attitude sometimes.) The big black dog had been bred for his size, for Kokorian goats were far larger than other breeds, and were not easily herded by an average sized dog; they were smart and stubborn, and believed in the unwritten animal law that might was right. Ganga, whose shoulders coincided roughly with the bottom of Lin's ribcage, was more than big enough to boss them around.

Bartal pushed himself up to a sitting position, brisking strands of black hair from his eyes roughly, and peered up at Linkali. "What were you planning on doing with your day, before I came along with intent to brighten it?" he asked.

Linkali pointed to the bag beneath the fence post on which she was perched. Bartal pulled it into his lap, and produced a sketchbook from inside of it. He flipped through the pages, occasionally showing drawings to both Coren, whose pale eyes glowed above his left shoulder, and whatever goat happened to be near his other shoulder. Most of them were crudely done, though a few were of surprisingly good quality. Lin was not the best of artists—she frequently had better or more important things to occupy her time; drawing was more of a fancy than an actual hobby.

"I've always wanted to get a sketch of Ganga herding," she said. "But he always moves too fast for me—I take time to draw anything."

"Fortunately, neither your mother nor your father is an artist," Bartal replied, "so you don't have to worry about making a living with your sketches. You're likely to be either a housewife or a goat breeder, just like good old Mom and Dad."

Linkali laughed. "Wow, what a difficult choice!" she said sarcastically. "On one hand"—she raised her left to indicate the first choice—"I get to spend my days in the kitchen, where I will doubtlessly burn many salads, forget to hang up laundry, and accidentally slice my own fingers off while trying to chop carrots for dinner. On the other"—she held up her right hand—"I get to look at goats of breeding age and see what traits are appealing, and then put them together when the nannie is in heat, with the hopes that the kids born will have those same appealing traits. When people want more goats that look a certain way, they'll turn to me, and I'll do my best for them." She shifted her hands up and down, as if weighing her options. "Hmm…"

"You're going to be a goat breeder." Bartal spoke the sentence with one eyebrow raised.

"I'm going to be a goat breeder." Linkali's voice carried with it no overtones of defeat or remorse. It wasn't a glamorous job (then again, no job in Kokoria truly _was_), but she had accepted it as the lesser of two evils, and was even fairly interested in it. It always did strike her as interesting how kids tended to look the same as their parents, inheriting quirks like wavy fur or curved-back horns.

"What if Fate decides to smack you around and turn you into a blacksmith?" asked Bartal.

"Me—a blacksmith?" Lin laughed. "Take a minute and picture that, Bartal. Just imagine me working around the forge. I'd be dropping red-hot horseshoes left and right; the smithy would be _on fire_ before the end of my first day of work!"

"You're not _that_ clumsy, Lin," Bartal pointed out mildly.

"No," Lin conceded, "but I _am_ that careless sometimes. I don't know—I've just never been good with tiny, tedious tasks; the bigger the better, I guess. I have no trouble scything down cornstalks at the end of the season, but for the life of me I can't plant seeds."

"Well, once you're eighteen, you can ask your father to take you on as his apprentice and learn your skills that way," the Hylian boy said with a shrug. Linkali nodded. Traditionally in Kokoria, children learned one of their parents' trades; however, it was not unusual for a boy or girl to ask a friend or neighbor to take them under their wing. This was likely to be the case for Bartal and his brother, as neither of them seemed good candidates to become midwives like their mother.

The conversation dropped off after that, and Linkali was glad that it had. She enjoyed spending time with an energetic boy like Bartal, but sometimes she rather liked the quiet. It was a rather peaceful afternoon, which, like most afternoons in Hyrule, was quick to give way to the darker evening hours. The sun was settling into the cloud-mottled west, sending beams of orange-gold up to stroke the horizon in vivid streaks. That was the signal that it was time to head back to the village; Hyrule Field was especially dangerous after the sun went down. Linkali stood atop the fence post and whistled for Ganga. The big dog leapt to attention. "Come by!" she ordered.

Ganga moved swiftly, darting out to the left of the herd. At Linkali's whistle and shout of "Stand!", he stopped and dropped down low, like a prowling cat. The goats at the edge of the group began walking back towards the larger concentration of their kind, moving away from crouching dog. Lin waited until they had rejoined the herd before whistling again to Ganga. "Walk up!" she called, adding, "Steady!" as the burly dog flung himself eagerly at the goats. Ganga checked his wild dash, moving instead with slow, graceful strides around the opposite way. "Stand!" Ganga froze and hunkered down, his mahogany-brown eyes fixed firmly on the goats before him. The hoofed animals began ambling away from him. "Speak up!" Ganga let loose with a loud, throaty bark that set the herd at a brisk trot. Linkali dropped down and gathered her bag up, then started after them. Every so often, she would whistle and issue a command to the goatdog, telling him to round up goats who were moving away from the group, or drive them faster or slower. Ganga obeyed her orders promptly; clearly, she was one of the youth he favored.

Bartal, carrying Coren piggyback, stayed silent until the goats were moving through the narrow pass that led up to their pen inside the village. He knew better than to speak while Linkali was working the herd. His voice would not only distract her, but also Ganga; if the boy unwittingly uttered a command word, the goatdog would obey him rather than Lin, for he had been trained to follow only the most recent order. The three Hylians went ahead of the goats, while Ganga stayed back to drive them forward. As they walked, Bartal began to speak.

"Do you want to come over to our house for dinner later tonight?" he asked. "Mom went off earlier this morning to help the beekeeper's wife through her labor, but she should be done by now. She said it didn't seem like it would be a difficult birth—that woman's got hips as wide as the ocean."

"I'll check with my parents and see," was Lin's reply as she opened the gate.

"I'll run ahead and ask for you," Bartal offered. "After all, once you've got the herd in the pen, you have to count them, and the check in with Gotari and make sure he knows they're safe." Linkali nodded. "Right, I'll leave you to that." He jiggled his younger brother on his back. "Coren, you asleep back there?"

"No," the boy replied softly.

"Good; it's too early for you to be snoozing!" Bartal laughed, and a glint of laughter and love appeared in Coren's eyes. "C'mon, let's stop over at Lin's house while she tallies the goats." He winked a farewell at the young woman before departing.

Linkali closed the gate after Ganga padded in; the massive dog bunched his powerful legs and rocketed over the top of the pen with ease. Lin scratched him behind the ears. "That'll do, Ganga, you good boy, you." She pulled a strip of dried meat from her bag and tossed it to the dog, who had been sniffing her pack with quivering nostrils all day. While he gnawed away eagerly, she began to count. Her first total was…

"Twenty-six," she muttered, shaking her head. Quelling the rising fear in her heart, she counted again, this time earning a total of twenty-eight. That couldn't be right; there were only twenty-seven goats. Linkali looked at Ganga, who seemed to have smelled her nervousness and was watching her intently. The Hylian youth sighed, turned back to the pen, and counted a third time, then a fourth and a fifth. Each time, she wound up short one goat. "That can't be good. Ganga, come to heel!" The dog marched up and stood at her left. "We're going back out."

* * *

It was nerve-wracking for Linkali to be outside Kokoria with the night hours so close at hand; all her life, her parents had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to be anywhere but inside the village after sunset. It had been drilled into her—drilled into _all_ children in Hyrule—that the only safe place after the sun went down was home. True, there was still plenty of light to be had, but it wouldn't be around for much longer. Ganga—the massive goatdog who was probably big enough to take on a fully-grown Wolfos and win—walking beside her provided some measure of comfort, but Lin was still hesitant to be outside Kokoria's limits. The girl bit her lip anxiously as she peered at the distant, shadowy corners of Hyrule Field.

She gave a timorous whistle. "Ganga, find!" she ordered, and tensed. The huge dog bounded away from her side, his head sweeping from side to side. Linkali watched him go, rooted to the spot. Her eyes followed him carefully as he moved back and forth across the open field. Her heart was starting to thump harder in her chest, sending adrenaline coursing through her body. She found it strange, though, that the faster her heart beat, the less afraid she felt. Something, she didn't know what, was using her heightened sense of alertness to clear her mind rather than drive her fleeing into the sunset. She became more aware of the sounds around her; she heard the rustling in the shadows and somehow knew that it was nothing to fear—an animal, not a monster. Slowly, the young Hylian began walking in the direction she'd last seen Ganga take. Her dark blue eyes darted left and right as she moved, bright in the fading light.

A thundering bark brought her attention to a dark shape huddled about a quarter-mile away from her. Linkali peered into the distance, nodding to herself and letting out a quiet sigh of relief. The goat had been found. She whistled. "Bring home!" she commanded, and began walking back towards the village. Ganga, she knew, would drive the runaway goat in the direction of Kokoria without much further instruction. He was a smart dog, able to think on his own; he didn't need her for this.

Linkali had taken three steps when she heard a strange scratching, scuffling noise around her. She froze instinctively, tensing her muscles and looking around. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as the scuffling sounds gave way to rattling, clinking noises interspersed with haunting giggles. The Hylian youth jerked her head around her, and what she saw dealt an icy blow to her stomach.

Two small beasts (_They're almost the same size as Tali,_ she thought) stood before her, their red and yellow eyes burning through the low light. She'd heard stories of them, and even glimpsed the carnage they could leave behind, but had never actually seen them for herself. They were walking skeletons with razor-keen claws and a dogged perseverance that few monsters possessed—Stalchilds. Linkali gulped as they drew nearer, her eyes flickering between the two of them. She'd heard that even a half-trained swordsman could easily defeat the Stalchilds; though Linkali could defend herself reasonably well with a sword, she didn't exactly carry one around with her, and as such was unarmed. As strange as it sounded, though, she wasn't entirely afraid of the monsters. She felt as if they were very little threat to her, despite her lack of weapon. All the same, she began backing away from their approach slowly, praying for the Goddesses' deliverance.

Her prayers were answered in the form of a large bundle of fur that strode up behind her on long legs and huge paws. Ganga was holding the runaway to his side; his eyes burned into Lin's and he crouched down low. The girl balked, sizing the dog up. "If you're sure about it," she murmured, and carefully positioned herself on his back. No sooner had she wrapped his long fur around her fingers than did Ganga set off between the two Stalchilds, driving the goat before him. The two monsters swung their claws in sync, with identical giggles. Linkali flinched and pressed herself against the big dog's furry back, burying her face in his ruff. Fortunately, Ganga ran much faster than either of the two skeletons, and he streaked through the twilight towards Kokoria.

Linkali lifted her head a few degrees when she was sure they were out of the Stalchilds' way. Her eyes narrowed against the whistling winds cut by the goatdog's speeding body. A strange thrill began to build in her chest at the sight of the darkening land zipping past her; never before had the youth seen the night approaching from anywhere other than the village. The world was a landscape of deepening, purple-black shadows streaked with vivid oranges and reds. Shapes lost all meaning, becoming blurs in the darkness and smudges against the light. The land was silent, it seemed, save for Ganga's rasping pants, the snaps of his teeth, and the bleats of the goat he urged ahead of him. Those noises filled the world of the girl riding astride the massive dog's back, became her world—they were the sounds of the coming, orange-painted night. It was completely alien for Lin, almost magical. She wished she had someone to share it with. She looked ahead and saw that the pass cut through the rock loomed ahead; they entered it, and the world lost its colored stripes, though its sounds grew louder and echoed back over themselves. After only a few moments of racing through the gorge, Ganga stopped.

They had made it safely back to the village. Ganga held the goat while Lin undid the gate, then drove it in dutifully. Linkali grabbed Ganga's ruff in her hands and pulled the dog close. "You saved my skin out there, Ganga! Good boy, _good_ boy!" Ganga's plumy tail wagged against the ground, and he licked the side of Lin's face affectionately. Linkali tousled his thick pelt happily, her heart thrilling in the past few minutes.

Riding Ganga's back had been a truly exciting experience; she could still feel the powerful, sure bunch and stretch of his muscles as the powerful dog had run. Lin had ridden a horse once before—it had belonged to a trader from the nearby village of Lonran (where most of Hyrule's horses were bred), for there were no horses in Kokoria—and she had been told she, unlike some of the other youth, had a natural balance. Ganga's back had proved somewhat more of a challenge to stay balanced upon, mostly due to his sleek fur, but Linkali had adapted accordingly (by all but laying down along his spine and holding on tightly). With a smirk, the young Hylian realized why Bartal had found the ride so appealing; it was certainly an experience she wouldn't mind repeating, although she knew better than to press the dog for another go.

On her way to Gotari's house, Linkali passed by the home of Aldez—the one she and Bartal occasionally referred to as "the Woman of Sighs." Though somewhat cruel, the nickname was an apt one, for Aldez did little other in the form of verbal communication than sigh. She was mute, unable to utter a single spoke word no matter how hard she may try. The story that was passed along through the villagers was that Aldez had once loved a man who was mute; when he had died, she had taken up a vow of silence to honor his memory. It was a tragic, touching story, and Lin was truly sorry for what had happened to the village founder—but that didn't make her lack of speech any less difficult for someone with a chatty friend to understand. Linkali was used to people who spoke; Aldez's silence had made her very uncomfortable the few times she had been forced to interact with the woman.

Frankly, if Lin had not been told otherwise by so many people, she never would have guessed that Aldez was as old as she was. Though it was heavily shot with streaks of gray and white, the woman's hair was still recognizable as being blonde in color, and was relatively thick and long as well. She wore it styled in a simple braid that hung down her back in an impeccably straight line. Though her face was traced with many wrinkles and her arms were freckled with age, her skin did not sag loosely around her body; Aldez did _not_ have the jowls and flabby arms of an elder. Her hands were incredibly steady, and she could walk without the need for any cane or young, supportive shoulder. She looked as if she were merely sixty, rather than more than _one-hundred_ and sixty. She tended to dress in fine clothes—not necessarily rich, but certainly a little nicer than most of the people in Kokoria; like a fine lady, she always wore long, white gloves, no matter the weather.

As she passed by Aldez's home, Linkali realized that the woman was out sitting on her front steps. She offered Aldez a friendly smile and a greeting of, "Good evening, Aldez." The faraway look in the old Hylian's blue eyes vanished when she saw the young woman; she smiled in response, and a rather intent glimmer appeared in her gaze. Her stare pinned the youth to the spot, though there was no anger or any sort of negative emotion in them; she merely seemed very interested in Linkali. It was not malicious in any way, but the attention made Lin feel a little uncomfortable. People rarely looked at her (or at anyone, since Hylians tried to keep to themselves) for so long, or with such intensity that she felt frozen to the ground. Aldez continued to stare; as she watched, Linkali saw something like hope and sadness mingling in the old woman's eyes. Those gave way to the original, burning focus. Lin felt her own smile begin to droop at the corners, becoming a horizontal line across her face. "You…you look well," she stammered.

Aldez blinked in silence. Linkali glanced to the side, breaking eye contact. "I have to, ah, find Gotari," she said, "and tell him that…the goats are all accounted for." She looked back and saw Aldez nodding. "Well, take care." Without another word, she continued on her way, perhaps a little faster than before. As she went, she felt the elder's eyes following her the whole way, watching her go with that strange, unnerving intensity.

* * *

"I don't understand why Ganga let _you_ ride him without freaking out!" Bartal complained.

"Were you even listening to me?" Linkali asked. "I was about to be shredded by Stalchilds! Ganga let me ride him because it was the best was to get me to safety. He wasn't just trained to guard the goats; Gotari trained him to protect all of us."

"I'm just glad you're safe," the boy told her; his easygoing smile took on a very frank edge, and his eyes grew serious. "I mean, you probably didn't have to go back out and get that one straggler. Your life is worth more to the village than any goat."

"Gotari said the same thing, you know. But I'm almost glad I did. It was exciting to be outside the village with the night so close at hand, Bartal." Bartal eyed her curiously, and Linkali knew what she said sounded incredibly strange. Being out of the village after dark wasn't exciting, it was scary…or, at least, that was what she had always been told. "When Ganga was running, I got to see the day fading into the night. It was like I was looking at both at the same time—I'd never seen anything like it before in my life!"

Linkali and Bartal were lying back on the roof of the latter's house, gazing at the stars in the distant, arcing heavens above them. The day's clouds had rolled away to the horizons, providing a circle of clear sky above Hyrule where the silver stars flashed and twinkled. Bartal's mother was still at work with the beekeeper's wife, and was unable to host her son's friend for dinner. That hadn't stopped the three of them—Linkali, Bartal, and Coren—from feeding themselves, though, and after they had eaten, the two teens had retreated to the roof to watch the stars and talk.

Bartal rolled over onto his size and looked at his friend. "Lin, leaving the village when it's so dark is something that's too reckless for even _me_ to do," he said. "There are monsters out in Hyrule Field, and their numbers increase as the sun goes down. You could've been killed, you know."

"Oh, I know," Linkali replied, just as serious as he was. "Trust me, I know. But…when I was out there, I didn't really feel that afraid. A little nervous maybe, and I was definitely shocked when the Stalchilds appeared, but I wasn't actually afraid."

Bartal shook his head slowly. "I'm no coward, but if I had been out there, I would've been scared out of my wits," he told her. He took her hand in his briefly and squeezed it; Linkali returned the gesture, noticing how his hand was trembling slightly. Their hands came apart, and Bartal's returned to its place under his head, while Lin rested hers on her stomach.

"You want to know something strange?" Lin asked, eager to step away from her unusual display of courage and approach a different subject. Bartal gave a curious grunt. "When I was on my way to tell Gotari that the herd was back safe, I walked past Aldez's place."

"Well that's hardly unusual," the Hylian commented.

"Yes, but she was sitting out on her steps, and as I walked by she was staring at me." Linkali shook her head wonderingly. "I mean _really_ staring. It was like she was trying to look into my mind or something like that, that's how intense her eyes were."

"Aldez is always a little strange," Bartal assured her with a carefree wink. "But I doubt she saw anything inside your head, Lin."

"I know _that_," she muttered. "But it doesn't mean it wasn't disconcerting. Nobody's ever looked at me that way before—it was almost like she was trying to see _into_ me. Even Aldez, strange as she can be, doesn't stare at people that way."

"I think you're getting all worked up over nothing," her friend told her simply. Linkali nodded. "Just let it go. You've got more important things to worry about, like chores and getting ready to study for your trade. If Aldez wants to poke around inside your mind, let her…unless you've got something you want to hide from an old lady?" He laughed, wriggling his eyebrows. Lin had no choice but to join in. "Hmm? Hmm?"

"Even if I did, how would she tell anyone about it?" she asked, chuckling and shaking her head. Bartal rolled onto his back with a happy snort. "Thanks, Bartal. I can always count on you to make me see sense."

"All for you, Lin," he replied with a grin. "You always did need someone with their head in the clouds to keep your feet off the ground." Linkali nodded in agreement, and turned her eyes again to the distant stars burning billions of miles above the darkened land.


	4. 3: A Visit with Aldez

As each day rolled away to reveal the next, Linkali found that her strange evening meeting with Aldez faded away more and more from her mind (although the memory of her adventure outside the village at dusk firmly remained). There was simply too much work to be done for her to be bothered to remember it. She cleaned the house alongside her mother, weeded the garden, helped out in the kitchen, and sat with her father while he pointed out certain traits in the village's herd of goats that he wanted to bring out more fully. Though she did not lack for time to relax, most of her free time was spent with either Talina or Bartal, with whom there was no such thing as relaxation.

Two days passed, and on the morning of the third, Linkali found herself again running to the well to fill a bucket for her mother. She spotted Bartal already there, a bucket of his own on his shoulder; while she lowered hers to fill it, the two began to chat. As they stood there talking, the traveler Lin had seen the last time she had come to the well began walking towards them. He stood between the two Hylian youth, nodding a greeting to Linkali as he recognized her.

"Your village has been very hospitable," he told her. Bartal smiled.

"We're glad you think so," he told the man. "Here in Kokoria, we pride ourselves on being one of the more welcoming villages of Hyrule." He glanced away. "Although, it's not always easy to be so friendly in this land." The traveler nodded.

"Yes, I've heard from other villagers that Hyrule is a dangerous land to live in," he murmured. A light of certainty appeared in his green eyes. "I've enjoyed my time here, but I think the time has come for me to return to my homeland."

Linkali and Bartal glanced at each other, somewhat skeptically. They looked back at the man, and Lin said, "Good luck to you." The traveler seemed to miss the underlying tones of sarcasm and grim amusement in her voice.

"Thank you," the man replied, dipping his head. "It didn't take long for me to journey in here, and now that I've seen the terrain that lies between this village and my homeland, I am better prepared to travel it. I hope to be back with my family before the week is out."

"I hope you have more than a few days' provisions with you, sir," Bartal warned.

"Of course," the traveler said, beginning to look confused. "Journeys are often unpredictable; I have enough supplies to last me nearly a week out in the field. But, truly, I don't think I'll be needing all of them. I am not from far away."

"We don't doubt that," Linkali assured him. "But while Hyrule is an easy place to enter, it is not an easy place to leave. Few travelers who journey here are able to return from whence they came."

The man looked from one to the other, frowning in confusion. He wasn't much older than either of them; Lin guessed he was in his mid- or late twenties. He was definitely from a foreign land, for while his ears were pointed at the tips, they were nowhere near as long or finely-shaped as those of the Hylians. He was strong of body, being just as tall as Bartal and visibly burlier, but there was a gleam of insecurity in his green eyes that was unmistakable; he seemed to be questioning his own strength. He brushed strands of rich brown hair away from his face with a sigh.

"Perhaps they had difficulties because their homelands were far away," he said at length. "Mine is nearby; I think I will have no trouble."

"Well, good luck to you all the same," Linkali told him. "If things do go badly for you, though, know that Kokoria will always take you back again. You've proven yourself to be trustworthy enough to be welcomed into our village."

"Thank you." The traveler shrugged his pack up further on his shoulders. "I will leave now; perhaps someday we shall meet again." He embraced the two youth in turn, and then started towards the village gates. Linkali turned to Bartal, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, we tried to warn him," the boy muttered darkly. "If he runs into trouble now, it's his own dumb fault."

"He seems like he's got a good enough head on his shoulders," Lin reasoned fairly, though a part of her would much rather join her friend in questioning the man's intellect. "I think if anything does happen to him, he'll have the sense to come back to Kokoria. And he might actually succeed—Hyrule is difficult to leave, but it's not impossible."

Bartal nodded in agreement, though he did not try to keep his doubt of such an occurrence out of his expression. Linkali was glad the traveler had left without looking too closely into her eyes, for if he had, he would have seen the same scorn in her blue orbs—as plainly visible as all of her emotions were. The consensus of the two youth was unspoken, but clear: The traveler _would_ return. He wasn't the first person to try and flee Hyrule, and he wouldn't be the last. He'd be back at their gates once more when his supplies ran out, just like every journeyman before him since the Evil King began his reign.

* * *

Two days later, Linkali found herself with nothing of great importance to do. Her father was hard at work convincing two of the goats from the village flock that they wanted to mate each other; since this was a trade secret, Lin couldn't really watch until she was formally made his apprentice. Her mother was busy in the kitchen with Talina, teaching the eager young girl her special tricks for making all of the incredible meals that she did. Bartal was out with his brother—and a few other teenage boys from the village, since safety lay in numbers—gathering wood. Linkali's room, and much of the house, was clean; the garden was weeded and the steps were swept. There was nothing for the young Hylian woman to do except able aimlessly around the village and stare up at the cloudy sky.

Linkali walked towards the village common, flipping up the hood of her mantle to guard her body heat from the cool morning air that threatened to steal it away from her. Rain had fallen the night before, and the grass was coated with crystalline droplets that left big, dark splotches of wetness on Lin's boots. The air in the village was, as it was nearly every day, quiet and peaceful, with hardly a sound to break the silence; even the clucking of the Cuccoos that some villagers kept was muffled and soft, and the goats in their pen in a corner of Kokoria kept their voices down. Smoke from family stoves rose into the cool air in gossamer clouds, and a thin mist cloaked the village in a damp, gray shroud.

Linkali breathed in the scents of her village, her home—the thin smoke, the freshness of the night's rain, the subtle (to Kokorians, at least) smell of the goat herd—and released her breath in a contented sigh. These were the kinds of things that set her heart at ease, the familiarity and predictability of her home. These were the things that made her happiest…or so she would like to believe. Linkali knew that deep down, in the bottommost piece of her heart, she wished for something new and different. Kokoria Village made her happy—of that there could be no doubt—but the youth sometimes wished for something more. Though she did not like to admit it, her evening out in the field with Ganga had fanned the smoldering ember of her interest in the world outside the village; a small tongue of adventurous flame now danced in her soul. It was a dangerous place, she knew (Stalchilds were the least of her worries), and that danger was what kept her safe at home—if only for the sakes of her parents, sister, and friends. Linkali did not resent living in the security of the village…but a part of her longed to take another exploration out into the field, despite the danger.

While she wandered with these thoughts, the young Hylian barely noticed the woman approaching her until she was tapped on the shoulder. Linkali turned in surprise to see none other than Aldez standing behind her. The old woman smiled a greeting, to which Lin responded, "Good morning, Aldez. How are you today?"

Aldez tipped her chin back a little, clasping her hands in front of her chest; Linkali took that body language to mean that the village founder was doing quite well indeed. Aldez held out one hand, indicating the younger Hylian. "Me? Oh, I'm fine, thank you. A little bit bored, but that's really not something I should complain about."

The old Hylian nodded sagely, then paused. She placed one hand on Lin's shoulder, which was a few inches higher than her own, and swept the other towards her home. Her expression asked a question, and Linkali voiced it for the mute woman. "You're inviting me in?" Aldez nodded. "Oh! Um…all right, sure." The teen walked beside Aldez, keeping her eyes to the side to avoid giving her reluctance away. The elder was kind, there was no argument there, but Lin was not sure she wanted to spend that much time with her. Still, she'd already accepted the invitation, so there was nothing she could do but step through the door the woman held open for her. She lowered her hood, and thought she might have heard a disappointed sigh from Aldez, but she wasn't entirely sure.

It was the first time Linkali had ever set foot inside Aldez's house, and the experience came as a pleasant surprise to her. She had feared the musty, dusty, somewhat sour odor of the elderly would suffocate her; the woman's home actually smelled somewhat dark, smoky and mysterious, like fine incense. In the small living room sat a rather large stove, inside of which blazed a happily crackling fire, which Lin wondered if Aldez herself had made. Most of the windows were closed against the morning chill, but one of them was open a small crack, and a steady draft of cool air kept the small house from growing too warm. Though furniture was scarce (as it was in all houses in Kokoria), that which was to be seen in the living room looked very comfortable and well-made.

In one corner of the room was a bookcase, which drew Linkali's attention. Books were hard to come by in Hyrule, since most printing presses had been shut down after the Evil King Ganon took the throne. Lin had seen perhaps three or four books in her lifetime; she knew that her father owned one about different breeds of goats, and that her mother had one about the history of the Zorian monarchy (which had always struck Lin as a strange subject, since no one had seen a Zora in over a hundred years and the race was believed to be extinct), and she had seen one on Gotari's desk once, but she didn't know its subject. But Aldez, it seemed, had all the books in the world—there were at least thirty of them sitting on those shelves, with about ten more in stacks on the floor.

Linkali's eyes grew round with wonder as she started towards a nearby stack. Lifting the top book off the pile, she held it up and opened the cover, her fingers skimming feather-light over the runes on the first page. Like everyone else in the village (except perhaps Ganga and the goats, and the beekeeper's new daughter), she knew how to read and write, despite the glaring lack of reading material. Lin enjoyed reading, though she never got much practice outside of reading charts of the herd's lineages, or the lists of Kokoria's tributes paid to King Ganon. After only a few paragraphs, though, she put the book down, a little confused by it. The story had started out describing a hunting Wolfos pack, but the beasts were now speaking to one another with Hylian words. To the best of her knowledge, no Wolfos could speak Hylian. Fiction was not a concept that Linkali was familiar with; she had been raised with stories of her ancestors, and legends of the Goddesses, and the idea of writing down something that was largely a fantasy was unknown to her.

Aldez waited patiently for the girl to come back to her. Her gentle face showed no signs of annoyance that Linkali had touched something of hers without asking; she looked for all the world like an indulgent grandmother beaming at her curious grandchild. Lin smiled in return, a little unsure of what to say—or even if anything needed to be said at all. What other kinds of books did Aldez own? (Were they all confusing texts where animals spoke?) Did anyone else in the village know about this? And, most importantly, what other wonders did Aldez have in her home?

Linkali followed Aldez into the kitchen, where the old Hylian indicated that her young guest sit at the small, two-seated table. Lin gazed around, unable to fully contain her curiosity. Aldez's kitchen was smaller than the one at her own house, although since the old woman lived alone, she didn't need a lot of space to cook. She had a water pump and sink beneath the main window in the room, and a cooking stove across the corner from it. A wooden table served as a counter, and a vase of dried flowers sat as decoration in the middle of it. Linkali watched Aldez reach up into a dish rack and pull down a full tea set from the top shelf. She turned back to Lin, holding up the teapot with a questioning look.

"Tea?" Lin asked, a little taken aback. The woman nodded. "Sure—thank you very much!" Aldez smiled benevolently and took the tea kettle over to the pump. Linkali started to get up from her seat to help, figuring that an old woman like Aldez probably wouldn't be able to work a pump on her own. But Aldez did not need any assistance; the wiry muscles in her upper arm tensed as she moved the handle up and down with dogged efficiency. Water squeaked forth from the spout, and Aldez filled the kettle without much fuss and bother. Linkali was silently amazed.

Aldez set the kettle on the stovetop to heat up, and came over to Lin with a couple of jars in her hands. She set them down on the table and swept her open hand behind them. Linkali picked up each of the small containers in turn, reading their age-stained labels. _Gerudo Pomegranate Tea, Apple Blossom and Jasmine Tea, Wintermint and Peppermint Tea._ The young Hylian tapped the first jar, since it was the only one with an ingredient she had never tasted before. Aldez nodded, the glow in her eyes indicating that she thought her guest had made a good choice. She swept back to the cupboard to put back the other containers, leaving the chosen tea to sit on the table in front of Lin. When Aldez's back was turned, the girl opened the jar and gave it a surreptitious sniff, grinning at the pleasing smell of unknown fruit that greeted her nose.

"It's very nice of you to invite me in to have tea with you," she said after a pause. "Really, thank you. And your house is one of the nicest I've ever been in." Aldez turned and smiled modestly before returning her attention to the cupboard. Linkali couldn't help but notice how gracefully the old woman moved—like a cat, or a fish in the water. No aged tremors shook her steady hands, which moved containers aside deftly and arranged them in neater rows. There was purpose in her movements—as there was in the movements of every villager in Kokoria—but there was something else to the way she moved, something Lin could not find a word for.

When the water was hot enough, Aldez filled a strainer with the tea Linkali had selected and set it over the top of the teapot. "Do you need my help?" Lin asked, rising to her feet. Aldez motioned her back down with a gentle wave of her hand. She poured the hot water over the leaves and into the pot, then set it on the tray and carried it over to the table. She poured two cups, and handed one of them to her guest.

Linkali had never seen a tea set made of such fine pottery before—or one with such intricate designs. Tiny, delicately painted flowers graced the white sides of the teacup, with a pale green vine winding around the handle of the cup. The saucers were decorated with lightly-painted Cuccoos standing around green fields; the big teapot had images of the same wrapping around it. Linkali tapped a fingernail against it gently, and was startled to hear a clear, high-pitched note ring out. Aldez looked at her curiously. "I-I'm sorry," Lin stuttered. "I just…I've never seen anything quite like this. This isn't normal clay, is it?" Aldez smiled and shook her head as she sipped from her cup. "I didn't think so. Nothing in Kokoria looks like this does. This is so sleek and light…and the decoration on it is just beautiful."

Aldez took this praise with a humble grin as she sipped her tea. Linkali followed suit, her eyes widening with surprise at the flavor of the tea. She swallowed. "I've never tasted anything like that. Is that…is it fruit of some kind?" Aldez tilted her head to the side. "The pom…pommega…" Hopelessly confused on how to pronounce the strange word, Lin tapped the tea container. "This thing."

Aldez picked up the container in her elegantly long fingers and lifted it to eye level. After a few minutes of alternately bringing it nearer and moving it further away from her eyes, the old Hylian woman nodded with understanding. She held up a finger and silently excused herself from the table, to disappear into the living room. When she reappeared a few minutes later, she had one of her many books in the crook of her arm and was flipping through the pages with her other hand. After a bit, she let out a quiet breath of air and set the open book down on the table in front of Linkali. The girl looked at the pages with interest.

The page showed an image of a round fruit that was totally foreign to the young Hylian. Its outer flesh was red, but an illustration that showed it cut in half revealed that the inside was a mixture of yellowish pith and red seeds. Linkali ran her fingers over the paper gently, shaking her head slowly in wonder. "I've never seen one of those before," she breathed, turning to see Aldez standing behind her with her hands clasped behind her back. "And it's from the Gerudo place?" The woman nodded. "I didn't know anything grew in that wasteland—everyone I've ever spoken to who's visited it says it's just dead. Do you know if these fruits still grow there?" Aldez shrugged, her face plainly showing that she did not know, and walked back to her seat.

Linkali sipped her tea in silence for a few minutes, her eyes flicking from the book to the woman before her. She was pleasantly surprised at how at ease she felt at that moment. She wasn't uncomfortable at all; now that she was actually seeing it, it didn't bother her that Aldez was silent and spoke with her facial expressions and hands—it was different, but not unlikeable. The old Hylian woman was actually good company. Aldez's home had a very unique atmosphere to it as well, a kind of mysterious calm. There was only one thing that kept her from being totally relaxed in the elder's house, and that was her hand.

Linkali noticed that whenever Aldez got especially close to her, the back of her left hand would begin to tingle and itch. It wasn't so much an itch, though, as it was a strange tickling sensation. There was warmth, too, as if Lin had stuck her hand in a patch of summer sunlight, or rested it against the belly of her family's cast-iron stove. She'd been feeling it vaguely ever since she had stepped near the woman, but she noticed that whenever the village founder drew close, the feeling would intensify. The sensation was totally alien to her; she wasn't even sure if she was worried by it or not. Linkali rubbed her left hand distractedly. Aldez pointed to it curiously. "It's nothing," the girl replied, and the old woman nodded and left it at that.

Pulling her mind away from her tingling hand, Linkali gazed over at Aldez. The quiet elder smiled calmly, her blue eyes warm. Lin couldn't help a grin of her own. She found that she was actually enjoying herself. "You have a lot of books," she said conversationally. Aldez nodded in agreement. "And your house is so different from that of anyone else in Kokoria—I really like it."

Aldez put on a questioning expression, pointed to the girl, and gestured around her home loosely, her smile never losing its gentle warmth. Linkali took a few minutes to interpret the motion before she dared to put words to it. "Do I…want to look around?" Aldez nodded. "Well, I…I mean…I don't want to impose…" The old Hylian brushed the air in a nonchalant manner. "I would like that, if you'd let me." Aldez made a sweeping motion with her arms, as if they were the gates of exploration that she was opening; Linkali laughed, and rose from the table. Aldez followed her as she walked through the house, though as more of a guide of her home than a guardian.

One of the first things Lin noticed was the strange goddess shrine in the corner of the kitchen. Most homes in Hyrule had shrines to the Goddess Din, a somewhat forced homage to the deity who gave the Evil King the power with which he ruled the land. The other two Goddesses, Nayru and Farore, were not forgotten, but offering prayers to them—and even taking their names in vain—was much less common than offerings—and swears—to Din. Aldez had a small shrine that honored all three of them, Linkali noticed, and it set them all in equal standing (in all of the three-Goddess shrines she had seen before now, Din was elevated above the others). _I wonder if Aldez remembers the days before Ganon was king,_ she thought. _And I wonder if the Goddesses were equal in those days, instead of Din being raised above the other two._ It made her curious, but Linkali had been raised in a place where questions were not always welcomed—especially questions that involved personal information. She wanted to ask, but she held herself back and continued to wander.

As she walked back to the living room, Linkali took a few minutes to examine the vase that decorated the kitchen counter. The heads of the flowers were dried wildflowers—she had seen them around the village and the hills nearby—but that was the only thing familiar about them. Instead of using sticks or tightly-wrapped leaves for the stems, Aldez had used something that looked like a long, metal needle. Lin lifted one of the flowers out of its container and studied its stem more closely. It _was_ a metal needle, though it had never sewn a scrap of fabric in its life; in fact, it looked more like a weapon than anything else. Linkali turned to Aldez curiously, tapping the tip of her finger against the point of the needle. (The sharpness of it startled her, and she knew at that moment that it _had_ been a weapon.) The old Hylian smiled and shrugged, though Lin swore she saw the gauzy glow of mystery on her eyes. Something about the metal needle didn't settle with the Hylian girl—it made her uneasy, but at the same time, she couldn't help feeling like she should have expected it.

Shaking the thought away, Linkali put the flower back in the vase and made her way back to the living room, feeling the tug of the books again. She had never seen so many texts before in all her life and the novelty of them drew her nearer. She ran her fingers delicately along the spines of them, tilting her head sideways to read the titles one by one. Many of them were collections of legends, and field guides for various plants and animals, with a few atlases and almanacs thrown in. Lin turned to Aldez behind her, and she knew from the look on the woman's lined face that her wonder was as obvious as always. The Hylian youth felt a little ashamed for returning to the bookcase again; she probably looked like an overcurious child. "I'm sorry, I just—" Aldez waved the apology away with one of her warm smiles. Linkali smiled abashedly in response, rubbing the back of her tingling left hand.

She found the source of the rich, vaguely smoky smell that permeated the old woman's home sitting on the lowest shelf: an incense burner, with several cones beside it. This intrigued her. Incense was expensive, a sweet-smelling luxury that only the rich (few as they were in Hyrule) could afford. Kokoria was far from a wealthy village; it was actually one of the poorest in the land. How had Aldez come across something so costly? Had she once been rich enough to afford it? As interested as she was, Linkali did not ask.

A soft chiming from the wall beside the bookcase drew the young woman's attention. Linkali turned and looked up at the simple clock hanging there, her eyes widening when she saw the time. Bartal should be returning around now; she had promised the boy they would meet up and pal around before their meeting that evening. Turning to Aldez, who was the model of quiet patience, Lin said, "I'm sorry…but I think I need to go." The old woman nodded understandingly. "But it was so kind of you to invite me in. I really enjoyed coming in and having tea with you."

It was true, Linkali realized. She'd been hesitant to accept the offer when it had first been made, but now she was glad she had. Aldez was a wonderful woman, quiet though she was, though Lin couldn't shake the feeling that there was much more to her than first met the eye. Perhaps it was wrong of her to think of the village founder the way she often had in the past.

Aldez walked with her to the door, and as Linkali turned to offer her thanks, she took the girl's hands in her own. The mute woman's blue eyes were lively and bright, and they spoke more happiness than any words could. Lin was warmed by their friendly light, but she found herself glancing aside to hide the unease that she knew was welling up in her own eyes; her left hand was buzzing and alive with heat, and the strange sensation was all but driving her wild with uneasiness. She was never more glad than when Aldez released her; she made her escape as gracefully as possible and headed for her own home.


	5. 4: The Hyrulian Resistance Coalition

The temperature dropped off swiftly after the sun went down over Hyrule, and though it was warmer in the village, the night was still chilly. Linkali shivered in the darkness as she walked across the common; she felt Bartal wrap his arm around her waist and pull her close to warm her up. The two young Hylians' breath glistened like thin, silver clouds in the starlight. They were silent as they walked, neither daring to speak for fear of drawing attention to themselves. Stealth and silence were vital; it was already difficult enough that they were traveling together. The shadows pressed close around them, for neither youth had brought a lantern to light their path—again, a necessary step in going undetected. Lin buried her nose deeper under the collar of her mantle and shoved her fisted hands into her pockets, pressing closer to Bartal's side.

The two Hylians crossed over the common and ducked behind the house on the other side. Bartal's gaze swung to the left while Linkali looked right; both pairs of eyes were sharp in the silver light from the moon and stars. They paused there for a moment or two, and then set off again. Lin hunched her shoulders up around her neck and pulled her elbows in closer to her sides. She heard a short exhalation from her friend: the most sound he could really make at the time, and the closest he could come to laughing. She could practically hear what he would say if he could speak: _Lin, are you trying to fold yourself up and disappear? Come on—I can't be _that_ bad of company, can I?_ If they could afford to make noise, Linkali would have loved to push him into the row of earthenware pots nearby, just to see if he would break them. But they had to be silent. Bartal couldn't utter any smart remarks, and Lin couldn't retaliate.

They continued along their way, slipping through the darkness of the night and merging into the shadows behind the houses of Kokoria Village. Linkali's heart was drumming excitedly in her chest at the prospect that awaited them outside the village walls. When she turned again to Bartal, she saw her own eagerness reflected in his eyes. The two friends did not hold each other's gazes for long; they snapped to task with a swiftness that most would not expect to see in a pair of teenagers.

Traveling like a pair of wary cats, Linkali and Bartal crept along the sides of the houses, sticking as closely to the bricks as they could. The gates of the cemetery loomed tantalizingly close, a spindly shadow against the starry sky. Linkali took her hands from her pockets—though her bare fingers weren't much warmer for it—and slipped out of Bartal's grasp. She moved forward a few steps, motioning with one hand for her friend to hang back for the moment, and peered around the corner of the building in whose shadow they crouched. Kokoria Village was silent, sleeping; Lin's dark eyes were sharp as sapphires as she glanced furtively around the corner and scanned the ground between her and the gates of the Kokoria Graveyard. That was their destination, and they would have to reach it separately to reduce their chances of detection.

Linkali tensed, drawing back and pressing herself against the side of the house, letting her breath out in a quiet sigh. She was nervous about the task sitting before her, for she currently stood in the last shadow between the village and the Graveyard. Once she stepped away from the building, there would be nowhere for her to hide, and nowhere to run if she were spotted. The coast appeared clear enough, but she had been taught not to trust anything that was not perfectly certain. She could not be seen.

Bartal took Lin's hand in his own for just a moment. He moved so silently that his touch took the young woman by surprise, and she cringed with a ragged, muffled gasp. She turned, her expression a mixture of annoyance, amusement, and disbelief; the Hylian boy merely grinned, his teeth glinting in the starlight. Linkali shook her head, trying and failing to smother a smirk. She shifted her attention back to the Graveyard gate and the task before her. Her feet moved slowly over the dark grass, bringing her closer to the edge of the wall. Linkali breathed in deeply, checked the terrain again, and bolted into the open like a fleeing deer.

Silver and black blurred at the corners of her vision as she ran, merging into a wild, confusing landscape. Linkali kept as low as she could, running with her chest almost parallel to the ground and her arms pumping close to her sides. Her heart surged behind her ribs in both excitement and fear. Her ears were stiffened, like those of a wary fox, and carefully tuned to the sounds of the village around her. The young Hylian's long legs carried her across the open stretch of ground swiftly; before long, she was pressing herself against the bark of a tree behind the open gates, quivering with relief. She was far from home free, but the worst of the journey was over. All she had to do now was to wait for Bartal. Linkali leaned in his direction and, after making sure that the coast was clear, stuck her hand into the light and flicked it to beckon her friend. She tensed, her keen eyes scanning the area as the black blur that was Bartal hurried quietly over to her side. His heavy boots were surprisingly noiseless as he dashed through the gates and drew into the darkness beside her.

The two youth laid low for just a few minutes, waiting on edge as the silence pressed around them. Linkali was the first to relax. The Hylian girl rubbed her hands up and down her arms briskly in the cold night air, turning to Bartal with a roguish grin. The boy returned the smile and added a wink to it. They were out of the village now, and the odds of their being discovered had dropped considerably, but they still had to be quiet.

The Kokoria Graveyard was a sprawling plot of land at the edge of the village itself. Splashed with the shadows of gravestones and the half-kept gardens, it was a spreading patch of silver-white in the starlight. Linkali and Bartal left the shadow of the lone tree and began walking up the small incline to the place where the graves of Kokorians lay. Lin moved ahead, leading the way down the path until she reached the final row. She walked along the line of wedge-shaped gravestones, counting them in the back of her mind until she reached the fourth block. Bartal stepped up beside her, and the two of them exchanged a nod.

Moving calmly, Bartal walked around the back of the gravestone and gripped the sides of it. He crouched low and heaved backwards with a low grunt. The gravestone began sliding slowly backwards. At first, nothing seemed to happen; then, a square hole began to appear in the spot where the stone had been. Linkali knelt down, glancing over her shoulders warily. She heard a breathy whistle and turned back to Bartal, who was the source of the noise. The young Hylian swept his hand towards the darkened shaft. Lin nodded and rose to her feet, then dropped into the hole silently. Bartal continued to hold the gravestone back for a few moments, even giving it a couple more tugs to be on the safe side. Then, after double-checking that no one was around, he hopped onto the stone and slid down its slanted front. The gravestone, which was held back by a spring, began sliding forwards, and it covered the shaft in the ground just as Bartal vanished into the darkness.

* * *

"Were you seen?"

Linkali blinked as her eyes adjusted to the change in the lighting. Two torches were hung from brackets on the walls of the narrow hallway, and their flickering, golden light was much brighter than the silver glow of the moon and stars. She heard the rattling thump as Bartal dropped down behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder at him before returning her focus to the young man standing in front of her. "We took every precaution, and have no reason to believe anyone saw us," she replied evenly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. "Don't worry, Harlan."

Harlan, a muscular youth who stood at least a head taller than Bartal, shrugged. "Well, you two had better get in there fast. I think the meeting's going to start soon."

"Really? This early?" asked Bartal. "I know we can't possibly be the last ones to arrive—there have to be more coming."

Harlan again shrugged his powerful shoulders, and indicated down the hall. "Who knows? It's not exactly like they'll miss anything _important_," he muttered dully. "HyReCo hasn't done anything since it was founded—all we do is make plans that will be scrapped at the next meeting."

Linkali pushed back her hood and adjusted her belt over her hips. The air in the underground passageway was much warmer than the air above ground, and it was rich with the scents of earth and sweat. If she strained her ears, she could just hear the soft murmur of voices ahead, though the tunnel was dark. No further torches lined the passageway, though at its far end Lin could see a faint glow. She looked back at Bartal again before starting towards it.

After a few minutes' walk down the dark hallway, Linkali came to a relatively large room that was lit by numerous lanterns hanging from hooks on the walls and low ceiling; the oil lamps gave off a steady, golden glow that bathed the middle of the room softly and left the corners vague and dark. Racks of halberds and spears hung from the walls, while barrels of swords and battleaxes were tucked into the corners (Hylians under the Evil King were still permitted to make weapons—they just couldn't be used against him). In between the rows of blades and shafts were maps of the land and lists of members and plans. The floor was paved with cobblestones, though they had been worn flat over the years and ruts of familiar footpaths could be seen. Men, and a few women, sat on seats made of overturned barrels, or stood around the edges of the room. In the center was a long table covered with even more maps of Hyrule—as well as Ganon's Tower and several of the small villages in the land—and figurines of armed Hylians; the maps were pinned to the table, although they were torn in many places and their edges were curled like those of fallen leaves.

Those who had already assembled looked up and over when Linkali and Bartal made their entrance; after it was determined that they were fellow members, the wary villagers returned their gazes to wherever they had been before. Lin stepped around to the side of the room and leaned back against the wall beside her father. He wrapped an arm around her waist as Bartal had done before, pulling her into a one-armed embrace as she rubbed her cheek against his. "You two took your sweet time getting here," he commented.

"We had to wait until we were sure Gokali go in safely," Lin replied, jerking her thumb at a young woman standing on the opposite side of the room. "I wish I could have told you when, but…well, you know." Her father—a big, bearlike man named Hatoren—nodded in agreement. Everyone in HyReCo knew the meeting arrival times of only three people: the one before them, the one after them, and themselves. Even members of the same family did not tell each other when they would leave and arrive; it was just another step to ensure secrecy.

"Just as well," he grunted. "We're about ready to start soon—at least, that's what Coalition Leader Vantal said a few moments ago."

Linkali gazed over at the table, and at the man sitting at its head. Vantal—a scrawny old man who looked remarkably like an aged squirrel, down to his hunched shoulders and spindly hands—was the leader of the Hyrulian Resistance Coalition. HyReCo, as it was more commonly known (but never referred to aloud outside of meetings), was a group out of Kokoria Village that had been founded not long after the village itself. It was the reason behind the strange hope that sometimes filled the eyes of some villagers when they discussed how hopeless their situation was. It was considered Kokoria's best kept secret, for there were actually a large number of villagers who did not even know it existed. (For example, Linkali and her father were both members, but neither her mother nor sister had ever heard of the Resistance Coalition, and if all went well, they never would.)

Members of the Hyrulian Resistance Coalition were chosen early in their lives by its leader Vantal after consultation with his councilors; the selected youth were informed of HyReCo's existence when they reached sixteen years of age. Who exactly was a part of the group was unknown until a member attended his or her first meeting, for no one discussed HyReCo outside of its gatherings. Linkali and Bartal were a rarity, for they had been told of the secret Coalition at the same time, and traveled to the meetings together; this was because the sight of them together was so commonplace that seeing them apart (but headed to the same place) would surely raise suspicion. Thus, the two friends were given clearance to attend the meetings together, though their special privilege did not allow them to be as noisy as they normally were.

As Harlan had alluded to earlier, HyReCo's central goal was to come up with a working plan to depose the Evil King Ganon and restore the Hyrulian monarchy to the throne. However, as he had also pointed out, it had been unsuccessful for all of its years at work. Plans never lasted long before some member managed to point out a fatal flaw; the longest a scheme had survived was three years, although before it was actually scrapped it had been worn very thin and was riddled with holes. Every failed attempt was catalogued in a vault hidden somewhere in the meeting place under the graveyard, but Vantal seemed to have committed them all to memory. The old Hylian man could remind members of any plan that HyReCo had eve come up with, and he did so if a member proposed a plan that had already been shot down.

Before Linkali could say anything further to her father, Vantal pounded his fist upon the table in the middle of the room. "I call this meeting of the Hyrulian Resistance Coalition to order," he croaked. All those in the underground room turned expectantly to gaze at the hunched old man. "Gotari wishes to discuss the plan from our last meeting."

Linkali glanced at Bartal, who returned her gaze and added a cocked eyebrow. They were silent out of respect for the village leader—who was now stepping forward to stand where all could see and hear him—but their eyes spoke their feelings about the plan. They had not discussed it (to do so outside of a HyReCo gathering was forbidden), but they knew each other well enough that they did not have to talk. Neither youth thought last meeting's plan was particularly smart, but they, as lower members, were not about to point this out. It was clear to see from the faces of some of the people gathered that they were not the only ones who disliked the plan; however, there were a good number of excited faces in the crowd.

Gotari turned in a small circle to look at the assembled Hylians before he spoke. The village leader was a willowy man, lithe and tall, with dark brown eyes and sandy-brown hair. Lin thought he looked somewhat like a deer, for he often had a wary, nervous expression about him; however, as much as he might look it, Gotari was not a weak man. He might have been light of body, but he could be as stubborn as a bull and as fierce as a mother Wolfos when his villagers were in danger. When he wanted to, he could be a very intimidating and commanding man, and he drew on this hidden charisma as he spoke to the HyReCo.

"Our plan from the previous meeting of HyReCo was simple, but oftentimes the simple ideas are those that meet with the greatest success," he began. "It would take a great deal of preparation and training, but I have no doubt that Kokoria would be able to carry it out." He paused there and flicked his hand in a beckoning motion to a young man standing in the corner of the room. "Forlan, bring me the papers, would you?"

Forlan, Gotari's remaining son (his older brother, Hintari, had been taken away to add to the Evil King's army a few years ago), was a year younger than Lin and Bartal. He took strongly after his mother, and was a squat, square youth with snappy green eyes and mud-colored hair. He stepped forward at his father's order, and passed a packet of loose sheets of paper to the village leader. Gotari shuffled the papers somewhat fussily into a neater cluster, only to spread them out over the table for all to see. The Hylians standing on the edges of the room stepped closer, with the shorter members squeezing their way to the front of the group. Linkali stayed further back with her father and Bartal; the three of them were among the tallest members, and could see over the shoulders of the others.

"If we were to pool our resources and build up enough of our materials," Gotari said, tapping the pages with his finger authoritatively, "then we could certainly pull it off. We would need the support of the entire village—which would mean exposing HyReCo to those not in the know."

More than a few disapproving mutters broke out at this statement, mostly coming from the older members. Linkali understood their unwillingness to carry out this particular point in the plan. The Hyrulian Resistance Coalition was truly a remarkable entity in its secrecy; many were surprised it had remained underground for as long as it had. Being hush-hush seemed to most to be an integral part of the group itself, and the thought of bringing such a deeply-buried secret to full light was more than a little disconcerting. _HyReCo has always been Kokoria Village's best-kept secret,_ one of the elders had told Lin once. _To expose it would be to destroy HyReCo itself._

"I know the idea is unsavory," Gotari admitted. "Even I am not sure if it would be wise or worth the gain. But it would be the only way to gain the support of the entire village. We would need every able-bodied weaponsmith working to add to our stockpiles, and every available person with combat skills to share their wisdom and experience." He indicated the second sheet of paper, which was comprised of many columns of names. "These are lists of all persons in this village whose skills we would require. They include our smiths, our warriors, our farmers, and even our dedicated nurses. These are the people we would need to build up our supplies, to train us to fight, to supply our fighters, and to care for those who are unable to go into battle. This page includes the names of nearly every member of our village—save the very young and the very old."

_Aldez is on it, though,_ Linkali noted from her memories of when she had read the sheet. _She's under the list of nurses—probably because her hands are so steady and her mind is still sharp. It's a wonder how a woman that old can still make herself so useful._

"The plan, as I said before, is almost foolishly simple." Gotari's lean-fingered hand moved to the next sheet in the set. This one was the largest, and had to be unfolded several times in order for its contents to be read. It was a compilation of several drawings of the inside of the Evil King's tower, the hulking monolith that stood over Hyrule like a hungry vulture waiting for its meal to die. "After arming ourselves heavily and preparing for combat, we would storm the Tower and take a stand against Ganon, hopefully ending his reign once and for all!" The sentiment was met with applause, but there was not a person in the room who believed that it would ever come to fruition.

"And now that we have all been reminded of the plan," Gotari declared, clapping his hands together, "I open the floor to discussion."

"I would like to voice a concern." One of the elder members stepped forward. "I do not like the idea of giving away HyReCo's secret to the rest of the village. This Coalition had only lasted as long as it has because it has been kept hidden, a secret to everyone. There is always the risk that one of Ganon's men walks among us, and if we were to reveal our resistance movement, that informant would expose us to their master post-haste."

"Are you accusing one of your fellow Kokorians of being in league with King Ganon?" Gotari asked, somewhat pointedly. The elder shook his head mildly.

"Not at all. But there is always the possibility. And if it were true, then we would be struck down before we could mobilize against the Evil King."

A tense silence stretched out over the group. Then, a voice was heard. "I would also like to voice a concern," someone from the back of the group said. The crowd parted to reveal a motherly-looking woman who appeared to be close to middle-aged. She stood with her hands clasped neatly behind her back, like a child standing on a stage and preparing to sing. "As a mother of seven children, four of whom are in this room tonight"—though she did not point them out, the foursome all glanced away from their mother in unison, effectively revealing themselves to all—"I can tell you that many of the women who are not part of HyReCo will resist if you set this plan into motion."

"Why?" Gotari asked.

"With all due respect, Gotari…This plan is so reckless that it makes most of the stunts that Bartal and Lin pull off look like childish games by comparison." At this, several pairs of eyes turned to the two youth. Linkali ducked her head sheepishly, while Bartal grinned, put his hands on his hips, and proudly stuck out his chin. "I know of few mothers who would willingly send their children out on such a dangerous mission."

"If we put a competent leader at the head of our group, a leader who is strong and courageous and smart, then I believe we will meet with success," Gotari insisted. "We need a warrior who is not afraid to face the Evil King, and a champion who is wise in the ways of combat—a leader who can guide us safely to victory."

The assembled Hylians looked at each other; some wore expressions of skepticism, while others appeared frankly amused. It was clear that many wanted to speak, but no one wanted to be the first to raise their voice. Then, in the silence, Bartal's voice rang out, as loud and fearless as ever: "This reminds me of a story I once heard from Elder Bentari."

When no one spoke up against him, Bartal continued, strutting to the front of the group like a rooster preparing to crow. "There was once a warren of rabbits that was being terrorized by a Keaton fox," he said. "The Keaton was a canny hunter who was a master of taking his victims by surprise. The rabbits did not know what to do with their predator. They tried reasoning with him, placating him with offerings—they built an effigy of him and offered it tribute, in the hopes that the fox, out of gratitude for their respect, would leave them alone. They even tried to mount an assault on him in the hopes that he would flee in the face of their unified army of bunnies." A few laughs broke out, and Bartal acknowledged them with a smile and a grateful nod. "But no matter what they did, the Keaton continued to sneak up on their burrows and take their fellows for dinner.

"Finally, the rabbits met in a grand council in their underground warren." Bartal paused for a moment, glancing around meaningfully. A few people—those who had heard the same fable from Bentari—were chuckling. "They met with the purpose of discussing what should be done about the Keaton who was decimating them. One of the rabbits, a brash young buck who knew no fear, said that they should make a collar of strong herbs to hang around the fox's neck. That way, he told the listening warren, they would always be able to smell the Keaton's approach, and would be able to hide underground. His plan was met with unanimous support from the other rabbits, and they began discussing just how they would go about it—which herbs they would use, how many, how they would be made into the collar.

"The rabbits were genuinely excited about this new scheme, all but one—a quiet old doe who kept to herself and never raised her voice above a murmur. The old rabbit watched the proceedings without saying a word or twitching an ear, and the others were so excited that they all failed to notice the knowing glint in her eyes. Finally, when the herb collar was finished, the warren prepared to celebrate their certain victory over their sneaky foe. It was then that the old rabbit spoke up, moving to the front of the group to make herself heard among the others.

" 'It is all well and good that we have made this collar,' she told them all. 'It is well-made, and he will not be able to pull it off easily. And truly, any rabbit with half a nose will smell the Keaton coming when he is wearing this.' She gazed out at the assembled rabbits, a smile beginning to build under her twitchy little nose. 'But my fellow rabbits…Who will put it on him?' "

Bartal folded his arms over his chest. "Now that I've told that little story, let me explain why I've told it." He spread his hands wide in front of him. "It's all well and good that we have made this plan to take down the Evil King. It might be reckless, but it could work if we pull the whole village together to work on it. And truly, if we have a dependable leader, one who is brave and wise, then nothing can stand in our way." He grinned. "But my fellow Hylians…Who will lead us into battle?"

Predictably, the room fell silent as every member of HyReCo looked at the floor or the walls. No one wanted to point themselves out or make themselves known. Linkali marveled at how much they truly looked like the rabbits in Bartal's tale. She looked at her friend, and saw him wink at her. If Lin said she hadn't expected him to do something like this, or that she hadn't expected the response of the gathered Hylians, she would have been lying through the little gap between her two front teeth.

The plan's fatal flaw had been exposed. It would never come to pass because it needed a leader, and there was not one to be found. Everyone in HyReCo wanted to act, but no one wanted to spearhead the attack. No one wanted to be held responsible if things ended badly. No one wanted to face the risk of failure, despite the glory that success would hold. It wasn't so much cowardice as it was the Hylian way: Stand with your friends, but be ready to duck behind them if something goes wrong; nobody's skin, except perhaps those of your children and loved ones, was as worth saving as your own.

Gotari sighed; he was clearly embarrassed at having his plan shot down by an elder's tale told by a young upstart who was known for his mischievous pranks and daredevil stunts. "Very well, Bartal," he said. "Are there any other objections? Or shall we lay this plan to rest?"

The decision was nearly unanimous, and the plan (which was, in Linkali's opinion, suicidal at best) was pushed aside; Vantal collected its papers, presumably to store them in the secret vault which contained every failed scheme that HyReCo concocted. The room was silent for a few moments after then, before a young man stepped forward with a packet of papers in his hand. He prefaced his plan with the words, "I had a dream a few nights ago, and this is what happened in it."

The Hyrulian Resistance Coalition oohed and ahhed over the plan, nodding sagely and murmuring amongst themselves. Linkali even found herself nodding with approval. The plan seemed solid and sound, and it even looked realistic to her. However, she did not allow herself to get too carried away with the emotion of the meeting. She knew, just as everyone else in the room beneath the graveyard knew, that the next time HyReCo met, the plan now resting on the table would be punched full of holes and all but spat upon.


	6. 5: An Unexpected Gift

"Mom, what are you making that smells so _good_?" asked Linkali as she stepped into her house. The lean girl dropped her boots on the worn, gray rug in the front hall—it had rained the previous day, and her boots were covered in thick mud from her morning romp with Talina—and darted stocking-footed into the kitchen. The younger of the sisters, who was right behind her elder, followed suit and bounded after her, hot on Lin's heels.

At the end of the front hall, they skidded on the wooden floors, with Talina losing her balance first and thudding into her sister from behind; Linkali fell to the ground with a startled huff, then whirled on Tali and began tickling her furiously. The sisters laughed loudly as they wrestled together on the floor, until the younger of the two managed to scramble to her feet and escape. Lin pushed herself upright again and pursued the young Hylian girl with a maniacal grin. The chase ended in the kitchen, with Talina hiding behind their mother and Linkali being held at bay by the handle of the wooden spoon wielded by the woman. Lin threw her arms up in surrender as she eyed her mother's chosen weapon warily.

"Din's fires, girls, you two are as loud as a pack of Moblins!" the older woman scolded, shaking her spoon at Linkali and her finger at Talina. "You'd think I had sons, the way you crash around and tussle!"

Lin began edging around her mother; the oven was her destination, for that was where the delicious smell had its origins. The Hylian woman stopped her daughter with a firm, swift poke in the belly with her spoon-handle sword, then swept down and bopped Tali lightly on the head when she laughed at her older sister's breathless gasping. "Merciful gods, can't you _ask_ instead of always having to _do_, Lin?" she demanded. "Your father and I taught you to be a well-spoken young woman—use your words."

"What's in…the oven?" Linkali puffed, rubbing her sore stomach.

"Yeah, we could smell it all the way up on the hill!" Talina added excitedly. Lin gave her a brief, but very dirty, look. Exactly which hill did not need to be specified, as there was only one hill that the villagers went to (Linkali and Bartal _had_ found several others for their hillboarding runs, but they were the only two who used those slopes for anything). Some Kokorians referred to the hill as Vantage Hill, since it stood above the village and was an excellent place to get a view of the entire community. It was a high, grassy peak—more of a plateau than a hill—with a solitary tree standing watch on its wide, flat top.

"The hill?" their mother repeated. "Vantage Hill? I hope you were careful up there; after all, it's not really a part of the village and we've seen monsters up there more than once in the past."

"Mom, you know I would never let anything happen to Tali," Lin protested. "Besides, it's the middle of the morning, and we've only ever seen monsters there in the evening or at night."

Halvara, the girls' mother, sighed and shook her head. Halvara was a slender woman, whose lithe frame and long limbs had been passed on to both of her daughters. Her hair was the same honey-gold color as Linkali's, though it was somewhat duller and the first few strands of gray were starting to make their appearance. (Hair-graying came earlier to Halvara's family than to others, though the woman was fond of playfully blaming it on her older daughter's reckless friend and the activities he pulled her into.) Her eyes were brown like Tali's, but were a much lighter shade of the color. She was a deft and practical woman, both in demeanor and attire; she refused the skirts worn by most grown women, replacing them instead with breeches or leggings, because she felt that such flowing garments would only get in her way when she worked.

"I know, Lin," Halvara said. "I know you take good care of your sister. I was just reminding you to keep one eye peeled for monsters."

"And I did," Linkali assured her calmly.

Halvara nodded. "Well, you asked what was in the oven?" she queried. The two girls nodded eagerly. "It's bread—a new recipe I got from Milina. Lin, I was hoping you could take it over to Aldez for me when it's cooled."

"Mom's getting friendly with the village founder!" Talina chirped. Her mother rested a hand on the girl's head, tousling her hair roughly, but lovingly.

"I just wanted to thank her for having you over earlier last week," she told her older daughter. "It really was kind of her to invite you in for tea, and I want to return the favor. I only wish you'd told me about it sooner, so that I could have gotten this to her before so much time had passed."

"Sorry, Mom," Linkali apologized. "It was a busy week—I kind of forgot it had happened." Her mother quirked an eyebrow as if to say, _You and I both know that you could have remembered if you'd only tried._ In truth, the young Hylian hadn't forgotten her encounter with Aldez that misty morning; she simply hadn't wanted to let others know about how mystifying and wonderful the experience had been—she'd wanted to keep the memories all to herself.

"Can I have a slice before Lin takes it over?" Tali pleaded. Halvara shook her head.

"No, Talina. If you'd like, though, I can make a second loaf for our family, but I'm not going to give Aldez a loaf of bread with a slice or two missing."

When the bread was out of the oven and had cooled off enough, Halvara wrapped it in a cloth and handed it over to Linkali. The Hylian youth inhaled deeply, a peaceful expression crossing her face at the delicious scent of the fresh-baked bread. It was still warm in her hands, a loaf of love wrapped in an off-white towel. Lin made her way back to the door, where she pulled on her mud-coated boots and headed back outside.

The day was overcast and cool, with the sun just visible as a glowing circlet behind a thick, gray veil of clouds. Linkali started across the village square, allowing the rain-beaded grass to clean the worst of the mud from her shoes. As she passed by the well, she kept one eye out for the traveler. He'd returned from his attempt to leave Hyrule the day before, and it was clear that he wanted to make a second try. Most of the people in Kokoria believed him mad, but a few found him rather amusing. The young man was not standing by the well; perhaps he was still gathering supplies, or had already left the village.

Linkali reached Aldez's door and knocked twice. The old woman did not keep her waiting long, and after only a few moments, the door opened a couple of inches and one of the old Hylian's blue eyes appeared in the gap. (People in Hyrule never opened their door fully for a knocker; you could never be certain that your guest was a friendly villager rather than a monster or a minion of the Evil King.) A smile stretched out underneath Aldez's eye, and the door opened all the way. Lin pushed back her hood and smiled in greeting. "Good morning, Aldez," she said, holding up the bread. "My mother sent me over with this."

Aldez nodded gratefully as she took the proffered loaf of bread. Without hesitating, she stepped back from the doorway and swept her free hand in a 'come in' gesture. Linkali balked, startled by the sudden invitation. Still, she had nothing against Aldez (in fact, she found she was rather starting to like the old Hylian) so she accepted it with a thankful nod. The village founder closed the door behind her guest, then indicated the loaf and pointed the way into the kitchen. Lin nodded understandingly and took the bread back, walking down the hallway to the eating space. She heard Aldez rummaging around behind her, but did not turn to look, figuring her curiosity would be satisfied soon enough.

The old Hylian woman appeared just as Linkali was setting the loaf of bread down on the counter. She was holding something behind her back, and motioned for the youth to turn around. Lin obeyed, listening as Aldez set whatever she had been hiding down behind the counter. She looked back when the woman tapped her shoulder. Aldez put on a questioning expression and pointed to the tea set perched atop the dish rack. "Tea? Oh, ah—yes, please…I guess." _If this turns into a habit for her, I'll be running over here every other day with something to "return the favor",_ Linkali thought, though she was not entirely displeased with the idea. There was something about Aldez's home that settled with her, something that made her feel very much at ease around the woman.

As the village founder strode about the small kitchen, Linkali found herself again drawn to the way the old Hylian moved, just as she had been intrigued the last time she'd been here. Aldez did not move like an elder—in fact, she didn't move like anyone else in the village. She seemed to glide effortlessly across the floor when she walked, her flowing skirt sweeping the ground behind her like an ivory-white shadow. She walked with more bearing and poise than Lin had ever seen in her life, moving around as elegantly as a swan. She lifted her chin up and held it level, rather than burying it in her chest and scurrying around with an air of secrecy like most Kokorians did. Her spine made a perfectly straight line from the base of her skull to the floor at her feet. On the whole, it made her seem…regal. Linkali snapped her fingers silently and grinned to herself, pleased that she had finally found the word that had evaded her the last time she had taken tea with Aldez. _Regal._

While the water was heating, Aldez unwrapped the loaf of bread Lin's mother had sent over, her face practically glowing with happiness. "I know, it smells so good, doesn't it?" Linkali asked. The elder nodded. "I was out with my sister this morning. We were all the way up on the hilltop, and we could smell it baking." Aldez grinned even more broadly and even gave a soft laugh. "Both of us have a pretty good sense of smell, but Tali's got a better nose than me, so she was able to tell exactly where it was coming from. We followed the scent like dogs on a fox, I'm telling you."

Aldez shook her head, her smile pushing away the wrinkles on the lower half of her face. Linkali saw the skin made smooth, and marveled again at how Aldez could look so much younger than she actually was. The old Hylian produced a knife from an unseen drawer and sliced the still-warm bread with slow, graceful strokes. Both she and her guest drew in their breath as the mouth-watering aroma grew more intense and delicious. Aldez cut a few slices from the loaf and set them on a plate, then re-wrapped the bread. Linkali suddenly remembered her manners and rose halfway from her seat. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked. Aldez merely waved her hand, and Lin sat back down.

A few minutes later, the kettle whistled, and Aldez swept over to the stove to retrieve it. She poured the hot water over the tea leaves and carried the tray over to the table where Linkali sat, along with the bread she had sliced. She handed a cup to the younger Hylian and took the other for herself. Lin sipped the steaming brew carefully, wary of a burnt tongue. Aldez had chosen something different this time—the girl could taste something faintly like apples. She swallowed and nodded approvingly. "This is really good," she commented. Aldez accepted the praise with a humble smile and a dip of the head. "Thank you so much."

The two Hylians each reached for a piece of bread, and took a bite at the same time. Lin's eyes flew open wide, while Aldez closed hers and tipped her head back happily. The bread was delicious—a light, airy, slightly sweet collection of carbohydrates. The young woman found herself praying that her mother would make good on the promise to Talina and make the same recipe for their family.

Linkali let her mind wander while she drank her tea. That was another thing she liked about Aldez, she realized: the woman was quiet, and never demanded her attention. It was certainly different for Lin to be around someone who wasn't terribly concerned with keeping a conversation going; not that she disliked how talkative her friends and sister were, but it was nice to be able to explore her own thoughts. She rubbed the back of her left hand without really thinking about it, using her fingertips to try and smother the strange tickling feelings. The sensations changed when she touched her hand, shifting from a gentle tickle to a persistent itch; when Linkali moved to scratch her hand through her leather glove, the itch melted back into that curious tingle. She glanced down at the offending hand somewhat warily, then shook her head slightly and turned back to Aldez.

"I might have to go soon," she said sadly. "I think my mother has work for me to do back home." The mute Hylian nodded her understanding. "But, before I leave…What were you hiding behind your back earlier?"

Aldez blinked silently for a moment, seeming to ponder what Lin had just asked her; then, her blue eyes were lit by twin glimmers of comprehension. She nodded, and her smile took on a mysterious, almost mischievous look. The old Hylian slowly raised herself out of her chair and made her way over to the counter again. She returned carrying not one, but two books in her thin arms. The books were of medium width, their covers made of simple leather decorated with a gold-leaf Triforce on the fronts and spines. Aldez set them down in front of Linkali, gesturing open-handed at the young woman. Lin rested her hand on them gently. "Can I read these?" she asked hopefully. Aldez nodded. "Th-thank you so much! I'll bring them back to you as soon as I can, I promise!"

To this, the woman shook her head; she held up her hands, palms facing Lin, and again indicated her guest. Linkali was silent, hardly daring to speak the words she thought the village founder meant to say. She looked down at the books, stroking their covers gently and tracing the sacred triangles with one finger, then back up at Aldez. The old woman was smiling warmly at her; Linkali found her voice. "Are you…giving them to me?" she breathed in disbelief. Aldez nodded once, conveying her certainty with the firmness of her nod. Linkali gaped down at her new books.

Books were treasures in Hyrule, precious gems that were guarded and passed through families. They might be loaned to others, but only if the recipient was known to return borrowed objects promptly. You never _gave away_ a book that your family had—you held onto it. It was your only link to the past, the only connection you had to the days before the Evil King closed down printing presses and libraries. Linkali wasn't entirely sure what to think. Was Aldez really giving her these two books? To have as her own? The village founder tilted her head to the side, obviously curious as to her guest's disbelief. "Y…You're sure you want me to have them?" asked Lin. Aldez nodded firmly a second time. The Hylian youth shook her head in amazement. "…Thank you. Really, thank you, Aldez." She tore her eyes away from her new books and gazed across the table at the old woman. Her smile stretched nearly to her pointed ears.

Aldez looked incredibly pleased with the reaction to her gift. She walked around the table and rested a hand on the girl's shoulder. Linkali rose from her seat and embraced the woman enthusiastically, still a little shocked by the knowledge that she was now the owner of two books. Aldez was warm and smelled like the same incense as her home; her wiry muscles flexed as she hugged the youth to her heart. Lin felt the queer warmth in her left hand buzz furiously, as if being so close to the woman were sending currents of sunlight and electricity over her skin. In the midst of the hug, she felt Aldez give a shuddering breath and stepped back worriedly. "Are you all right?" The old woman nodded; though she was still smiling, Linkali thought she looked a little sad, as if she had been reminded of something poignant.

Before the youth could look closer at Aldez's face, she remembered that her mother was probably waiting for her back at home. She did not want to leave, but she felt that she had to. Resting a hand on her books, Linkali murmured, "I…I should probably go home and see if my mother wants anything." Aldez nodded in agreement. "But it was great to see you again, Aldez, and I really am grateful to have these books." The old woman smiled serenely and dipped her head as if to say, _You're welcome._

Linkali took her books into her arms, pressing them against her chest securely, and started towards the door. She pulled Aldez into a one-armed hug before she left, and again felt the elder breathe out shakily. It made her curious, but she reminded herself that the village founder was very old, and that the elderly sometimes breathed strangely. (What she could not explain, though, was why the unusual sensation in her hand seemed to rise to a fever pitch when she held the woman close.) Lin began walking back to her house, waving a farewell to the woman standing on the porch.

Once she was around the corner, Linkali adopted a completely different attitude. She brought her shoulders forward, shielding the books in front of her from view, even though there was no one else around to see her. She looked like a true Hylian at that moment: secretive, defensive, sneaking, and suspicious of everything. Bending her knees low with every stride and sticking close to the sides of buildings, the young woman loped silently back to her home. Once there, she tucked the books securely into her belt and climbed up the corner of the house. There was a small landing in front of the loft window; Linkali swung herself deftly over to it and entered her room through the window. In the silence of her own room, the girl took her new books into her arms and sniffed them softly. She could still pick up traces of incense smoke, mingling with the dark smell of the leather. One finger stroked the flaky gold leaf on the front cover of the top book. Lin shook her head in wonder.

_Her_ books. They were _her_ books.

She stashed them under her bed, covering them with a loosely crumpled shirt, and headed out the window again. She had to make her return from the front door—otherwise her mother would suspect something. The books would have to wait until later, when Lin had more time to read them. As the young woman walked around to the front of the house, she couldn't smother a shudder of glee. She had books.

* * *

Linkali did not get a chance to return to her books until after dinner, and her heart was racing as she walked up the stairs to the loft. She carried Russie in her arms, although partway up the stairs, the cat slipped free and perched instead on her owner's shoulder. When she stepped into her room, Lin locked the door behind her and headed straight for her bed. Russie hopped off and made herself comfortable on the pillow while the girl kneeling on the floor rooted around for the books. When she found them, she held them over her head dramatically and hopped into bed beside her cat. Russie sniffed the books with interest, then rubbed her cheek against the corner and purred.

"Aldez gave these to me, Russ," Linkali said, stroking the cat's back lovingly. "Can you believe that? She just _gave_ them to me!"

Russie looked up at Lin and meowed happily. The Hylian youth pushed her nose against the top of the she-cat's head, causing the feline to shove back and purr loudly. Linkali pulled her lips over her teeth and bit down on Russie's ear. Russie responded with a gentle nip on the cheek and a growl that said, _I appreciate the love you give me, but I didn't like that._

"All right, fine." Linkali pushed herself back up and placed the first book in her lap. "You know, I was so excited to get these books that I never really asked what they were about. Still, though, I bet Aldez wouldn't give me an almanac or something like that. I wonder what it's about."

And she opened the cover, resting her finger on the first row of runes on the first page. Her other hand fondled her cat's fur gently as she read, although it wasn't long before she lost the feeling of Russie's soft pelt. The story landed its hook in her swiftly and began reeling her in like a fish on a line. The tale began by describing a place called "Kokiri Forest" and the people who lived in it: the Kokiri, a race made entirely of children who never grew up. The Kokiri lived their lives in idyllic paradise—exploring the forest, playing games with each other, romping without a care in the world—under the protection of an entity known as the Great Deku Tree. Every Kokiri child had a fairy partner that accompanied them wherever they went…except for one boy.

Linkali paused and closed her eyes, trying to picture the scenes she had just read. She had never heard of the Kokiri, although their name sounded similar to that of her own village, Kokoria. Her first impulse was to dismiss the books as strange fiction, but before she could think to set them aside, the interest the story had sparked in her heart returned her to the pages. Something told her that there was more to this book than she first thought, and that if she kept reading, something might make sense.

The fairyless boy's name was Link. Linkali laughed when she read it, for at first she thought she was about to read her own name. Perhaps that was why Aldez had given her these books—because the protagonist's name was so similar to her own. It struck her as strange, though; for some reason, the boy's name resonated deep within her. It almost sounded familiar. _Probably because it's part of my own name,_ Lin thought offhandedly, although she couldn't help feeling as if there were more to it than that. The thought made her uncomfortable, and she hurried to push it aside. The story was only a fictional tale anyway. It had to be, since she had never heard of the places or people it described.

The Hylian girl devoured her new book hungrily, falling deeper and deeper into the story of the boy without a fairy. He was quiet, somewhat of a loner; the rest of the Kokiri usually shunned him because he was so different from the rest of them. He did have one close friend, a peppy girl by the name of Saria who never hesitated to stand at his side and make him feel wanted. She spoke enough for both of them, often interpreting his silence and gestures for others. Linkali was reminded of Bartal and herself; when Lin had been younger, she had been a quiet one, and Bartal had often explained her needs to other people.

The book went on to describe the Great Deku Tree, the guardian of the Forest, who had fallen under a terrible curse. The Tree called on one of the many fairies in the woods and sent her to the boy Link, instructing her to bring him to his side. This fairy, Navi, was to be the boy's companion. Together, the pair of them ran to meet the Great Deku Tree, and they entered his hollow trunk to try and break the curse. They succeeded, but they came too late. The Tree died, but not before passing on the treasure of the Kokiri on to the boy: the Spiritual Stone of Forest. Link was told to go to Hyrule Castle, to seek the Princess of Destiny. So he set out with Navi, and the two of them left their Forest home and struck out for Hyrule Field. _The late morning sky was clear and the sun shone cheerfully down on the pair's journey._

Linkali stopped reading at that sentence. Could this story really be taking place in her homeland? It seemed unlikely—she had never heard of the Kokiri, and she had never seen the kind of weather being described. (How could there be a day without clouds?) Add to it, the book did not mention the Evil King at all. It _had_ to take place in some fictional world, but no matter how many times Lin read the runes, the name of Link's destination always came out "Hyrule Castle." Not to mention that the one who he was supposed to meet, the Princess of Destiny, shared that title with a prominent figure from Hyrulian history: Princess Zelda. Linkali was thoroughly confused, and a little afraid of what the rest of the book could hold, but she forced herself to keep reading. Even if it made her uncomfortable, the story was fascinating and very well-written.

After meeting Zelda and showing her the Stone he had been given, Link was sent on a quest to gather the other two Spiritual Stones. He went to Kakariko Village, and from there to Death Mountain. Again, Linkali paused on the page. More words she knew were appearing, more places whose names were familiar to her. Link headed up the Death Mountain Trail, and at the top of it he met with a race of creatures called "Gorons." Lin had never heard of such a people, and the book did not describe their appearance, which left her even more confused. She was still trying to figure out whether or not this was a tale of fiction. She kept reading, though; Link defeated the monsters that were swarming the Dodongo's Cavern and saved the starving Gorons by allowing them to gather rocks for their food in peace. (Linkali, who had been picturing the Gorons as a group of robust, mountaineering Hylians, was utterly confounded by this.) In gratitude for his bravery, Link was given the Spiritual Stone of Fire by the leader of the Gorons.

The brave boy did not stop there. Without pausing for rest, Link raced to Zora's Domain and, after a bit of running around, found himself inside the belly of the Zoras' fishgod, Jabu-Jabu. Linkali was silently glad that a good amount of time had passed since she had last eaten; the book spared no detail or description. Though the gory chapters threatened to make her ill, she did not set the book aside or skip ahead. When Link defeated the final parasite plaguing the giant fish and obtained the final Spiritual Stone, the girl reading the tale couldn't contain a happy cheer. Russie, who was dozing at her knee, jerked her head up with a curious mew. "He did it, Russie!" Linkali whispered happily, taking the cat's paws in her hands and swaying them side to side. Russie blinked sleepily up at her, and the young Hylian released her pet with a sheepish grin.

Lin followed the adventures of the silent boy and his devoted fairy partner for the rest of the night. With every sentence, she fell deeper and deeper into the story in her lap. She began to admire the young Kokiri boy—his courage, his selflessness, his drive to complete the quest set before him. Though he was still so young, he had a dogged determination that Linkali rarely saw in even grown men. She found herself wishing that he was real, that he lived in the Hyrule of today rather than the Hyrule on the pages of the books Aldez had given her. The girl shook her head slowly in wonder, a slightly sad smile crossing her face. If anyone were to take a stand against the Evil King, it would have been Link.

The first book (Linkali had torn herself away from it and checked the second book Aldez had given her; indeed, it was a continuation of the same tale) was nearing its end. Link tried to meet again with Zelda, only to see her riding out from the castle at breakneck speed. The young Princess hurled something into the castle moat; the Kokiri boy turned just in time to see the man from the desert behind him. After a brief exchange with the Gerudo prince, Link retrieved the Ocarina of Time from the bottom of the moat and ran to the Temple of Time. There, he offered up the three Spiritual Stones and played the mystical Song of Time. The door behind the altar creaked open; Linkali found herself leaning forward, as if she were trying unconsciously to peer through the shadows in the image in her mind's eye. Her heart beat faster—she hadn't been expecting a door to open.

In the story, Navi darted ahead of Link, her body casting a flickering glow over the darkened walls of the temple. A sword awaited them in the next room, one that the fairy seemed to know well. _"It's that legendary blade," she whispered. "The Master Sword."_

Linkali took one cover in each hand and contemplated slamming the book in her lap shut; she resisted the urge, and settled instead for a low moan of disappointment. Russie's head jerked up, and she meowed mildly, but her owner did not hear her. She was staring at the closed book nestled between her crossed legs and shaking her head slowly. The Hylian youth didn't want to blame Aldez for this; the old woman probably hadn't been thinking too clearly when she had pulled the books from the shelf and handed them to Linkali. Frankly, the girl had to wonder just _why_ the village founder would even have books like this. After all, it wasn't like the protagonist of the tale was anything to be idolized, and in fact, most of the people in Hyrule actually despised him.

Linkali's new books contained the story of the Hero of Time.

Lin cracked her knuckles and sighed. The Hero of Time…He was only called a _hero_ because it was part of the title he had held in life. He was no _hero_; he was history's greatest failure! Some people might say _" 'A' for effort"_, but in Hyrule there was no such belief. You either did something right and were successful, or you did it wrong and failed all who depended on you. And that was exactly what the Hero had done. He had failed Hyrule and all of its inhabitants—every Hylian born now was sure to suffer under the Evil King, all because of this _Hero's_ shortcomings. Children were raised hearing the story of the Hero of Time's death, and many grew up hating him for the dark future his defeat had doomed them to. Oftentimes, young children playing a game would mockingly call the losing team _'a bunch of Heroes'_, with just enough emphasis on the last word to make it a capital letter and thus compare the failure of the other team to the failure of the Hero of Time.

Linkali's parents were different from most; they had taught their daughters that the Hero of Time had done his best for his country, and that he should not be despised because he had attempted the impossible. He had gone into battle believing—for whatever reason—that he had what it took to defeat the Evil King, and had paid the ultimate price for his foolishness. That was what Linkali had been raised to think: the Hero of Time was not a failure…just a fool. A fool who had learned the hardest way possible what happened to those who tried to rise against King Ganon on their own. (That was why HyReCo was viewed as being worthwhile; even though it held the same eventual goal, its members knew that strength lay in numbers.)

Lin did not doubt the Hero's courage, strength, or determination, and she even found him to be an admirable person. But she herself did not look up to him, did not aspire to be like him. In fact, she almost pitied him a little, for he had lost his life in a fight that he clearly could not win, and had gone down fighting despite the impossible odds.

Linkali was even a little skeptical of the young man who had lost his life those many years ago, especially now that she held a previously unknown piece of his past in her lap. In all her life, she had never heard his name—he was only known as "the Hero". She had never known that there was more to his life than his fateful battle against the Evil King. If the character in this story, this boy Link, was the same person as the Hero of Time, then Linkali honestly expected better of him. Link had faced scores of monsters before he had taken up the title of Hero; Lin thought he should have fared better against Ganon than he had. She fingered the last pages remaining of the book, shaking her head. _I would at least expect him to have the common sense to run away, especially if he ever realized that he was outmatched. It seems a shame that such a good warrior was struck down because he was too stubborn to realize that fleeing can sometimes be your best choice._

Linkali glanced down at Russie. The red-brown tabby cat yawned widely, and after a few minutes, the girl sitting beside her caught the yawn. The night was late, and Lin's eyes were tired. She skimmed the remaining pages of the first book and settled it underneath her pillow. "I'll take a look at the second one tomorrow," she murmured as she lay back on her bed. Russie padded up and settled down on her belly with a contented purr. Lin rubbed behind the cat's ears and turned down her lantern for the night. As she drifted off, the Hylian girl couldn't help feeling a little excited about the second book. The last few sentences she had read had promised her much more: a second quest for Link to undertake. (And although it proved to be a good, interesting read, Lin would find out the next day that the second book did not change her deep-rooted feelings towards the Hero of Time; he remained, as he always had been to her, a fool.)

With a quiet sigh, Linkali closed her eyes and let sleep cover her silently.


	7. 6: The Broken Blade

Linkali never really finished the second book of the Hero's story. She read it in pieces every night, devoting a few hours of her evening to reading how Link cleared the many Temples in the land. She accepted now that the books Aldez had given here were Hyrulian history rather than amusing fiction, though she found it haunting to think that the Hyrule of her day was so vastly different from the Hyrule of the Hero's time. The more she read of his adventures, the more she found that she could like about the brave young man; however, as admirable as she found him, she could not relinquish the beliefs she had held since she was a child. Link—who up until recently had been a nameless Hero in Lin's mind—was, despite his dogged determination and raw courage, a fool.

The Hylian girl stopped reading the book at the point where Link ascended Ganon's tower to confront the evil man himself. She knew how history played out from there, for she had heard the story told by many of Kokoria's elders over the course of her young life. Frankly, she had started to develop a liking for the brave Hero, and she didn't want to ruin that opinion of him by reading of his great slipup. She did not want to read again what she already knew—that the Hero of Time was slain by his own stubbornness, struck down in the fight against Ganon because he refused to flee from the impossible fight. (Linkali began to wonder if that was the reason why her people were so risk-adverse and hesitant to voice their opinions: They'd already seen what happened when you stood for something.) So she set the books aside without finishing the second; the two tomes took up residence under her bed, keeping company with a stray sock, crumpled drawings, and a cat toy that Russie hadn't seen since she was a kitten, among other things.

As the story of the Hero of Time gathered dust beneath her bed, Linkali's shifted feelings towards him also began to fade away. They hadn't really taken a solid root in her heart, and after a few days of listening to children taunting each other with the word "Hero", they began to slip out of her mind. They had been causing a good bit of unconscious conflict, with her approval of the courageous youth grappling fiercely with the scorn that she grew up around for the same boy; when her former feelings again took seat, the conflict was eased, and so was her heart.

Before long, a week had passed since the morning when Aldez had given Lin the two books. In those brief seven days, the young Hylian saw her elderly friend almost as frequently as she saw Bartal. Aldez would often invite Linkali into her home for an afternoon of conversation—which was not nearly as one-sided as most Kokorians would think. The more time she spent with the woman, the more Lin realized that Aldez could speak volumes despite being mute, and that she frequently had a lot to say. Linkali stopped trying to interpret aloud as much as she had, and let her friend speak for herself with her body language, face, and hands. It was an experience that she was usually at a loss to describe—it was one of those things that had to be seen for oneself—but the youth rather enjoyed her afternoons with Aldez. She found that she was quickly developing a profound sense of respect and liking for the silent old woman, and got the sense that the village founder had some feelings of the same for her.

Linkali invited both Talina and Bartal to join her on separate occasions when she met with Aldez, but the other youth declined in their blunt, matter-of-fact way. Bartal had burst out laughing and declared he found the graveyard to be a cheerier place; Tali had looked at her sister as if the older girl had announced her marriage proposal to a Kirikiri. Clearly, they both held onto their old beliefs about the mute woman—that she was a mournful, sighing character whose past sorrows were always bringing her and those around her down. (Quite the contrary, Aldez was a very friendly, animated person to be around, and Lin found that an afternoon with her was just as fun as a morning spent making mischief with Bartal.) Nothing Linkali could say would convince them to join her, so her almost-daily visits remained between the two Hylian women. Lin found that she didn't mind it at all.

* * *

"The funniest thing happened yesterday when I was with Bartal," Linkali said, leaning forward in her chair a little. Aldez also leaned in closer, her eyes bright with interest. "We were outside his house, trying to do wall jumps—you know, running up to a wall and springing off of it. Well, Bartal got a good fast start, and he managed to run up the side of the wall"—she made running motions with her two fingers along the palm of her raised hand to illustrate—"and actually was able to not only turn a full flip before he started to fall, but also land on his feet!" The old woman nodded appreciatively, looking a little startled at the thought of such a feat. "But that's not the funny part. This boy decides he's going to do a victory run, but he doesn't bother to look where he's going and winds up running face-first into the window shutter as his mother is opening it from inside the house!"

Aldez began to laugh—at least, that's what Lin knew she was trying to do. The mute Hylian's laughter was, like everything else about her, almost totally soundless; the expression on her wrinkled face spoke more amusement than the breathy sounds she uttered. She shook her head, one hand pressed against her thin chest. When the burst of mirth began to fade, Aldez looked over at Linkali; she brought the back of her own hand in gentle collision with her face, then held out the other hand palm-up and cocked her head to the side.

"Oh, he was fine," Lin answered, brushing the air nonchalantly. "He had a nosebleed for about twenty minutes, and that was it. Before it was all said and done, though, the three of us were checking the _shutter_ for damage."

Aldez grinned, shaking her head with amusement. She bonked her face lightly with the back of her hand again, and her smile broadened at what her actions symbolized. The young Hylian seated before her nodded in agreement. "We were laughing about it for a while afterwards, his mother and I," she said. "It was just so perfect—the timing couldn't have been better! Bartal was a little cranky about it at first, but it wasn't long before he was laughing too." She sighed and glanced off to the side. "You know, I thought about inviting him to come, but I remembered that you told me to come alone today. I think he was going to go off with Coren and do some brother-bonding, anyway."

Aldez nodded, still smirking from the amusing story. Linkali turned back to the old Hylian woman, her eyes bright with curiosity. "So, why did you want me to come by myself?" she asked.

The innocent question seemed to sober the village founder; the high corners of her smile dropped as swiftly as if they were tied to lead weights. She shifted her gaze away from Linkali, and she seemed to be looking at some thought or memory worlds away from her humble kitchen. Lin was not entirely startled by this sudden change in demeanor, for she had often seen Aldez grow distant for no apparent reason. (She took it in stride; her respect and affection for the elder far outweighed any discomfort that Aldez's mood shifts might bring.) The young woman ran her finger mildly over the rim of her teacup while she waited for her friend to return to the present.

After moment, though, it became apparent to Linkali that Aldez was not nearly as distant as she'd first seemed. The old Hylian's deep blue eyes were scanning the village outside her kitchen window. The world was cloudy and gray; Lin's father had predicted another rainstorm was on its way to soak Hyrule, and would arrive before night fell. Though it was only the middle of the afternoon, the cloud-choked skies made the village seem darker than usual. Only a few Kokorians were out and about; Aldez's eyes seemed to follow each individual with nervous intensity. Linkali reached out and rested her right hand atop the elder's, startling her a little. "Aldez, is everything all right?" she asked.

The old Hylian nodded briskly. She took in a deep breath and released it quickly, then let her gentle smile return to her face. There was a strange look in her eyes, a kind of fire that flickered behind her normally tranquil stare. She started to rise from her seat slowly—hesitating for a moment as if she were about to sit back down—and walked away from the table; her graceful strides had a bit of stiffness in them that Lin knew was not the result of age. Her long fingers moved in uneven ripples as they stroked the palms of her hands, clenching into loose fists every so often. Aldez was breathing rather deeply; Linkali got the sense that the elder was either very anxious or very excited about something—or perhaps both. She walked maybe ten steps away from her young guest, then stopped and turned on her heel. Again, Lin saw the bright glint in her eyes, and began to wonder why Aldez was steadily growing agitated. Before she could open her mouth, the older Hylian turned back around and sighed softly.

"What's wrong?" Linkali queried, for she knew that something was troubling the elder. Aldez waved her hand in the air nonchalantly without turning. Lin frowned a little. "No, I won't let it drop."

Aldez stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder at the teen. The sharp light in her eyes had mellowed to its normal, warm glow, and a gentle smile was creeping up the side of her face. She shook her head and turned back around to face Linkali. She held up her hands horizontally, palms facing each other, in front of her chest and sighed. Lin raised one eyebrow. "Does this have anything to do with why you asked me to come alone?" she asked. Aldez inhaled and held her breath for a moment, then released it with a nod. Lin glanced at the window, the view from which seemed to be the original trigger in all this, then looked back at the village founder. "So…why did you?"

The old Hylian pursed her lips thoughtfully. She glanced at the teacup in Linkali's hand, which was empty; Lin saw a flicker of frustration cross Aldez's placid face, and wondered if the elder had hoped to use an unfinished drink as a means to delay explanation. Aldez held her hand out to the youth and flipped her fingers towards her upturned palm, then began walking towards the door. Linkali obediently followed after. As they walked down the hallway, the mute woman turned to Lin and made a few motions. The girl interpreted them aloud, something she usually reserved for times when she was not sure of their meaning. "There's something you want to give me?" Aldez nodded in agreement. "A-all right." Linkali wondered what she could possibly give the elder in return, since it would be difficult to come up with a gift equal in worth to some of the things Aldez had already given her.

The village was fairly quiet when the two Hylians stepped out of Aldez's home, though Kokoria's calm did not seem to soothe the elder. She still moved stiffly, and her hands were twisting at her sides again. Linkali reached down and wrapped her right hand against Aldez's left gently, smiling when the woman turned to look at her curiously. "Where are we going?" she asked. Aldez pointed to the right, then swerved her wrist around deftly to indicate a turn. Lin nodded, and the pair of them walked around the side of the house.

Linkali couldn't help noticing the change in Aldez's posture as they walked together. The village founder's chin was dipping closer to her chest, and her normally straight shoulders were starting to slouch in towards the front of her body. It struck her as strange to see the mute woman, whose poise and grace never failed to impress Lin, would choose this day to start walking like every other Hylian in the land. She was used to Aldez sweeping across the ground with subtle flourishes and regal bearing; now that she was hunching and starting to skulk, she almost didn't look like Aldez anymore. (The hand that Linkali held was also twitching slightly—not the tremors of age, but the spasms and jerks or great nervousness.)

Lin squeezed Aldez's hand lightly, drawing the woman's attention. "We don't have to…do whatever it is you're thinking of doing," she told her softly. "I mean, if it's causing you this much anxiety and stress—" She snapped off the sentence there as Aldez suddenly straightened her back and shoulders, and gave Linkali a firm, level stare. They stopped walking—or rather, Aldez stopped, and Lin took another step before the old Hylian's firmly-planted feet pulled her back. Aldez held the young woman's gaze for a few minutes, her blue eyes fearfully sharp; suddenly, Linkali felt just as ashamed as if the village founder had given her a loud scolding in front of gods and everyone, and she dropped her eyes. Aldez exhaled slowly and jiggled Lin's hand, indicating that they were to start moving again.

For the rest of the night, Linkali would wonder about the stare (among other things) she'd received. There had been something unusual in Aldez's eyes, a glint that did not belong in the gaze of an old, mute woman. It had been piercing, fierce, and almost intimidating. It had been…warrior-like. Lin wasn't sure how Aldez had been capable of giving such a look, especially not with such swiftness and intensity. It was almost as if the village founder had, in her long and largely unknown past, given that same glare many times. It didn't settle with the young Hylian, and it added yet another piece to the ever-growing puzzle that was Aldez.

They continued around the side of the house and went around to the back of it. Linkali saw the wooden doors to the cellar, which rested on a small platform atop the ground, and wondered if that was to be their destination. Her suspicions were confirmed a second later, when Aldez (who had reverted to her semi-hunched posture and had taken to glancing about furtively) pointed her free hand at the doors. Lin released the elder's left hand and stepped up to the twin doors. "All right, we're heading to the cellar."

Linkali lifted the heavy wooden bar that held the doors closed and laid it against the side of the house. She reached for the door on the left with both hands, only to see Aldez's gloved hands grasping the handle of the door on the right. She looked up into the old woman's dark blue eyes. "Aldez, I'll take care of it. I wouldn't want you to hurt your back—these doors can be pretty heavy." Aldez quirked up an eyebrow and flexed her right biceps with a carefree grin that Lin was accustomed to seeing on Bartal's face. The youth shook her head. "I really don't think it's a good idea for you to—"

She broke off there. Before she had even said the word _good_, Aldez had bent down, grasped the door handle in both hands, and started to pull. By the time she was putting the _d_-sound on the end of the word, the old Hylian had already lifted her door to a forty-five degree angle. As Linkali was saying the word _for_, the door was open at an angle just wider than ninety degrees. The word _to_ was nearly lost in the loud thudding of the door as Aldez stepped back and let it fall onto the ground. The mute woman dusted off her gloves and parked her hands jauntily on her hips. She grinned over at Lin; for a moment, a cocky pride filled her face and pushed away the unease. Linkali laughed aloud. "If it takes me longer to raise this door than it took you, I hope you'll spare my pride and not tell anyone," she joked. Aldez scoffed and gestured around her open mouth, her expression seeming to say, _As if I could!_ Lin giggled again. She set to work tugging the door open; on the other side of the cellar entrance, Aldez folded her arms over her chest and looked away with a quiet sigh. The amusement that lit up her face melted away, and the nervous, twitchy look returned.

When the door came to rest on the ground, Linkali looked over at Aldez. "What are we getting—?" she started to ask, only to break off as the old woman whipped around and hushed her swiftly. Lin tensed guiltily, wondering why Aldez was being so secretive. "There aren't many people out," she said in a softer voice. "And most of them are out closer to the common." Aldez nodded fairly, though her expression said she clearly did not want to risk being seen. Lin glanced up at the sky. "Looks like that storm's going to break soon—that should clear the village. Well, the doors're open now, so we can head down."

Aldez stepped closer to the entrance of the cellar, bundling her skirt into one hand to keep it from dragging in the dirt. She peered down into the darkness, then looked up at Linkali curiously. She dropped her skirt, then held up one hand as if she were gripping something in it and gestured with her other hand to the empty air beneath her hand. "Are we really going down deep enough that we'll need a lantern?" Lin asked. Aldez nodded the affirmative. "Do you want me to run home and get mine? It shouldn't take long." Again the woman nodded, and the youth bobbed her head in agreement and darted off through the village.

"Mom, I'm borrowing the lantern, all right?" she asked as she stepped in the door. Halvara poked her head around the corner of the hallway.

"Good afternoon, Linkali," she said somewhat testily, emphasizing each syllable separately. "Would you like something?" Lin grinned.

"Good afternoon, Mom," she replied. "And yes, I'd like to borrow the lantern, if you can bear to part with it for a while."

"Sure." Halvara jerked her thumb at the opposite side of the hall. "You might want to take some extra oil, though. I found it in Tali's room this morning; I think she was up late last night playing at making shadows on the wall, so it's probably running low." Linkali nodded. "What do you need it for?"

Lin hesitated. Aldez's strange anxiety and furtiveness made her wonder if it would be a good idea for her to tell her mother the whole story—or even any part of it. The youth shrugged aside the worry. "Aldez wants to show me something in her cellar," she responded, not sure whether it was a lie or not. She walked towards the place her mother had indicated, a hollow in the wall where one of the family's lanterns nestled. A bottle of oil stood beside the lamp; Linkali gripped the handle of the lantern and pocketed the oil.

"Watch out for rats and Skulltulas," her mother said. "They tend to gather in dark places, and they don't take kindly to being disturbed." Lin nodded and gave the woman a quick kiss on the cheek. "Make sure Aldez doesn't trip or fall—a woman her age is not as sturdy as a girl like you."

For a moment, Linkali contemplated telling her mother about seeing the mute woman yanking open the cellar door, but decided against it. Few people in Kokoria realized just how strong and hearty Aldez really was, and something told Lin that the village founder liked to keep it that way. "I'll keep an eye on her—and thanks for letting me borrow this!" she added, lifting the lantern. Halvara smiled and tucked a pack of matches in one of her daughter's belt pouches. Linkali departed, racing back to Aldez's house with the lantern in her hand.

Aldez was waiting patiently on a large rock beside the gaping cellar-hole. Though she looked sedate and relaxed, Linkali knew that on the inside, the old woman was probably just as tense as when she'd left her. Aldez rose gracefully to her feet when Lin approached, nodding as she saw the lamp in the girl's grasp. "My mother warned me to watch out for the usual basement-vermin," she said as she filled the lantern's base with oil and lit the wick. Aldez was silent, her blue gaze sweeping the sky and village nervously. It almost seemed like she was on the lookout for something sinister, like she expected some fearsome beast to spring out at her from behind the dark clouds.

When Linkali stepped towards her, Aldez motioned the girl into the cellar first. Lin obeyed, descending the earthen stairs. She stopped a few steps from the bottom and turned just in time to see the old Hylian close the double doors after them. A few shafts of gray daylight shone weakly between the wooden doors; other than that, the only light in the cellar came from Linkali's lantern. A silence stretched between the mute woman and the uncomfortable youth. Aldez looked considerably more relaxed now, and when she began to walk across the darkened floor, the curious stiffness was gone from her strides. Linkali sighed, shook her head, and hurried after her. She didn't like being down in the cellar with the doors closed behind her, but it was what Aldez wanted and she wasn't going to protest.

The air in the cellar was somewhat warmer than the cool village above and dry, heavy with the rich smells of decomposing leaves, old leather, musty rope, and dried herbs. Soft skittering, churring sounds came from the dark corners of the room—probably the Skulltulas Halvara had warned her daughter about. In the lantern's flickering glow, Linkali could see that the walls were hung with all manner of things, some of which looked normal in the cellar, and some of which did not. Like the pitchfork and gardening tools, the racks of withered leaves and the coils of rope, the broken pieces of furniture that could probably be scrapped and used for something else—those were the kinds of things that one might expect to see in a cellar. But the suit of armor and the collection of pikes, the richly-embroidered tabard with its strange emblem of the Triforce and a red bird, the golden harp that looked like it could be comfortably carried in the crook of an arm—those struck Linkali as being unusual items for anyone (much less old Aldez) to have in their cellar.

The basement was larger than any Lin had ever set foot in; she would have pointed this out if she hadn't gotten the distinct feeling that Aldez desired silence. The air was charged with a strange current of anticipation, and something mystical. Linkali wished she could shake the feeling that something was drawing her through the darkness of the cellar—it was starting to give her the creeps. She swallowed hard and glanced over at Aldez, and saw that the mute Hylian's face was as peaceful and dignified as ever. Clearly, if there were undercurrents here, Aldez was unaware of them. Linkali fought the urge to shiver. She wasn't so sure she liked this cellar adventure anymore, but she wasn't about to ask her hostess if they could abandon it.

Thunder rumbled the ground around them, and Linkali's hands jerked spasmodically. She gave a ragged gasp of surprise and fumbled her grip the lantern; it dropped from her hands. Aldez swooped forward and snagged the falling object before it struck the ground and spilled its precious oil over the floor. She held it out to Lin with a concerned look. The Hylian youth took it back and gave an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry," she whispered. "I…The thunder just…startled me." _Hell, who am I kidding? It scared me. It always scares me, _she added in her mind. Aldez raised her eyebrows curiously, almost as if she had heard Lin's thoughts. "I know, it's stupid for someone my age to still get spooked by storms." The old woman smiled gently and shook her head, patting Linkali's arm. The girl swore she saw a glimmer of knowing in those blue orbs, but she couldn't work out why it would be there.

Up ahead, after what felt like nearly ten minutes of walking, they reached the end of the cellar. Linkali stretched out her lantern and patted the earthen wall with her other hand. She turned to Aldez. The old woman was motioning her further down the wall. Lin squinted, but could make out nothing important in the low light. She had no choice but to follow Aldez as the mute Hylian strode through the shadows. A few steps later, though, the lantern-light danced across something that made all of the unusual things Linkali had noticed earlier look downright normal.

A blue-gray stone slab engraved with the Triforce.

The slab had no hinges or handle to suggest it was a door or anything other than a decorative chunk of rock. And yet Aldez was stroking it with one hand and looking at it as if there were something other than a wall behind it. She closed her eyes and whistled a soft song; it was the same three notes twice, and something about the way it sounded put Linkali at ease. The strange calm the song instilled in her did not last long, for no sooner did the old woman's whistle die from the air then a rumbling far deeper than that of thunder shook the earth. Lin could only gape in confused awe as the stone slab began to rise up along the wall (_into_ what, the girl could only guess), revealing a hidden chamber in the cellar.

Aldez deftly snatched the lantern from Linkali's hand before the youth could release her grip on it out of shock. She smiled mysteriously and started into the room. Lin could only follow, shivering as the strange feeling of being pulled forward redoubled. She folded her arms firmly over her chest and hunched her shoulders forward, glancing warily over both shoulders before following the village founder. Again, thunder murmured through her bones; the girl was glad she no longer held the lantern, for her hands jerked spasmodically at the sound.

Aldez hung the lantern on a hook on the wall, and it cast its flickering light over the scene. The room behind the stone door was small, barely six feet long and six feet wide. The complete skeleton of a rat lay in a jumbled heap in one corner, and the light from the lamp played eerily about the empty eye sockets of the skull. Aside from that, though, the tiny room was virtually empty…except for the chest. It was large—probably as tall as Lin's hip—and fairly nondescript. Aldez crouched down in front of it and drew the key that locked it from a thin chain that hung around her neck; Linkali had often noticed the necklace, but she had never thought about what was on it, since the chain dipped into Aldez's shirt. There was a click as lock embraced key, and Aldez set the heels of her hands against the bottom edge of the lid and pushed upward. The lid of the chest creaked upwards, and the old woman kneeling in front of it gave a quiet sob. She put her face into one of her hands, her shoulders shaking as she fought for control.

Linkali sank down to her knees and rested one hand on the mute woman's back in a comforting gesture. She hadn't seen what was in the chest, but whatever it was, it was clearly causing Aldez some kind of emotional pain. (Frankly, it was causing Lin emotional pain, but only because the wave of familiarity that struck her after the lid went up was making her nervous.) After a minute or two, the woman began to recover herself. Her breathing evened out and her body stopped trembling with repressed sobs. Lin stepped back while Aldez reached her hands into the chest and drew out the treasure that lay within. She stood straight and tall, and turned around to face Linkali. She then held out her arms, and offered the young woman what they held. Linkali took the object, nearly dropping it when it turned out to be heavier than she'd first thought.

It was a sheathed sword. Linkali ran her fingers over the ornate, gold designs that ran up and down the length of the blue scabbard. The colors were muted and dusty with age, although the girl suspected that a good polish would have them gleaming in no time. She turned it over in her hands, listening to the strange rattle from within; the straps that would attach the sheath to a swordsman's belt looked like they would work just fine, despite the obvious age of the item. Linkali's hand ran up the sheath, stopping with a sudden twitch when they came to the hilt that poked out from the top. The indigo-blue crossguard was splayed like the wings of a bird in flight; the langet was decorated with a raised, golden triangle. The sword's grip was longer than most swords Lin had seen, and the pommel was unusually shaped. The young woman rested her hand on the grip and pulled lightly, her eyes stretching wide when she saw the mark of the triangles on the blade.

For a few minutes, all Linkali could hope to do was stare at the sword in silence. Her heart pounded loudly in her pointed ears, filling her world with its rapid thudding. For a brief instant, she felt as if she had stepped out of her body, and was seeing the scene—Aldez, her holding the blade, the dancing light of the lantern—from the eyes of another.

She knew this sword.

_Of course,_ she thought briskly, swallowing hard. _I…I read about it in that book. The book Aldez gave me._ She drew the sword the rest of the way from the sheath, and an indescribable feeling filled her as she saw that the blade was broken halfway between hilt and point. With a flicker of disappointment, she realized just how dull and worn the legendary sword looked—the story had described the Master Sword as being keen and bright and alive with the power of the gods. Now that she held it in her hands, though (something told her that this was no clever look-alike), she could see chips and scratches along the lusterless blade. The Master Sword looked positively…defeated. Almost as if its spirit had been broken along with its blade. Was this truly the sword of a Hero?

Linkali jerked her eyes away from the weapon in her hands, centering her gaze on Aldez's face. Aldez was smiling and nodding, holding out her hands as if to say, _It's yours now_. Slowly, Lin slid the hilted half of the sword back into its sheath and started to pass the whole thing back to the old woman. "Aldez, I can't…take this," she stammered softly. "It…It's…I can't take it."

Aldez reached out her hands, and for a moment, Lin wondered if she were truly about to take back the blade. What if this wasn't what the old woman had meant to give her? What if she was merely showing off one of her treasured possessions? The youth felt a flicker of shame begin to burn in her belly, sickening and embarrassing. But Aldez did not relieve the young woman of the sheathed sword. Quite the contrary, she began gently pushing it back towards Linkali. Lin saw something like desperation, a silent plea, spark behind the elder's blue eyes; it was gone in an instant, but the girl had not missed it. She was a little afraid to think of what it might mean. Aldez turned around and closed the chest, locking it with the key around her neck even though it was empty of treasure now.

Linkali took a deep breath. "This is really it," she whispered. Aldez turned over her shoulder. "Th-the Master Sword…I'm actually holding it." The old woman nodded. "And you just…gave it to me…" Another nod, this time coupled with a smile. "I…I don't know what to say."

Aldez turned back to Lin and held up one finger. She indicated the Master Sword, then hunched over and wrapped her arms over her chest as if she were trying to keep something hidden. Linkali nodded. "It didn't strike me as the sort of thing I should be parading through the village," she muttered. The Hylian elder flicked her index finger through the air, as if it were a tiny whip she was cracking. Lin shook her head, a little worried and thoroughly unsure of what to do now. She knew that she held in her hands a critical piece of Hyrule's history…Aldez had probably been holding onto this sword for most of her life, hiding it away in secret.

Which led her to wonder just _how_ the woman had managed to get a hold of such an important item. Lucky deal in a pawn shop, maybe?

Either way, Aldez had had it, and now it belonged to Linkali.

* * *

Rain was pouring down from the heavens when Lin and Aldez left the cellar. Kokoria Village was dark—silent, save for the dull pattering of the raindrops and the roars of the thunder. Linkali hurried back to her house, flinching and cringing a little each time lightning seared overhead. She was glad she had made so many trips from her house to that of the village founder; she didn't even need to see the ground to avoid holes, she was that familiar with the route.

The young woman managed to sneak her new sword home in the same manner she had snuck in the books. Later that night, she locked her door and shuttered her window, and drew the sword from its sheath. The broken blade was unwieldy and difficult to even move slowly through the air—so much for the perfect balance she'd read about! It was strangely heavy, too, as if weighted down with the sorrow of losing its Hero all those years ago. Linkali sheathed it in disgust. She knew she should be grateful after receiving such a wonderful gift from the village founder…but she hated to think that such a mythical weapon could be so easily crippled. It was her weight now, her shame. She had been given the story of the foolish Hero, and now she had his dead sword to match.

Lin froze, glancing down at the scabbard in her hands. Come to think of it, this was the second (actually, the third) item Aldez had given her that had something to do with the Hero of Time. First the books, and now the blade. What did it mean? Aldez wasn't the type of person to just give things away randomly; her gifts always had some kind of meaning behind them, whether the recipient understood it or not. But what was the meaning of this? Linkali scowled as she stashed the sheathed Master Sword under her bed beside the two books.

Aldez was going to have a visitor tomorrow.


	8. 7: Anger and Apologies

Linkali had trouble sleeping that night, even after the thunder was silenced. Every time she would close her eyes and drift off, a jolt would run through her and she would remember the sheathed blade resting beneath her. Once or twice, she managed to fall completely asleep, but it was a thin doze that was easily shattered by the slightest of sounds; upon wakening, Lin's mind would immediately jump to the Master Sword under her bed. It was strange, but she almost felt as if the sword expected something of her—although what it could possibly be, she didn't want to think. She had her suspicions, and _those_ were bad enough to have bumping around in her head.

The Hylian girl tossed and turned beneath the covers, sprawling out one minute, curling into a ball the next. Her eyes would scan the room blearily from time to time, and she would frequently give voice to an impatient groan as she shifted positions. She tried imagining peaceful places to relax her mind, repeating legends to herself in the hopes that the familiar stories would lull her to sleep; she begged the gods to grant her rest. The gray eastern sky was touched with pink by the time Linkali's uneasy mind settled down into true sleep, and it was only after she had taken the Master Sword out from under her bed, thrown it in the back of her wardrobe, and shut the doors.

After that restless night, Lin awoke around midmorning; though she did not feel entirely restored by her sleep, she figured the rest she'd gotten was as good as it was going to get, and hauled herself out of bed. Besides, she didn't want to waste any more time than she already had—she needed to speak to Aldez today. After swiftly getting dressed and grabbing some quick breakfast, Linkali struck off towards the home of the village founder.

Aldez looked somewhat startled to see the young woman standing at her door, but her surprise quickly melted into a smile of genuine happiness. Despite the suspicion that lurked in her heart, Lin found herself grinning as well. She was truly glad to see the old Hylian; Aldez had quickly become one of her dearest friends. The mute woman stepped back and invited her guest in.

"Aldez, I need to ask you about something," Linkali said as she sat down in her usual chair at the kitchen table. Aldez swept regally towards her seat and settled down into it with all of her normal, prim grace. She folded her hands sedately in her lap, gesturing palm-up at Lin with one of them to indicate that the girl should continue with her question. Linkali took a deep breath, hesitating for a minute before she spoke. The buzzing of her hand distracted her, and she rubbed it while she waited for her thoughts to come back into order. When they did, she asked, "What exactly do you think I am?"

Aldez blinked in silence. Her pale, calm face was interrupted by the tiniest spasm of uncertainty. What that meant, Linkali wasn't sure. The Hylian youth held the old woman's eyes for a few moments; she hoped that something else, some other unexpected twitch of out-of-place emotion, would appear, but save for that one flicker, Aldez's blue gaze was as steady as mountain stone. Lin glanced away, unable to look into those serene eyes any longer. She felt a scratch of annoyance at her heart, and wondered why the elder was always so unflappable. She inhaled deeply. "You think I have some connection with the Hero of Time…don't you?"

If the village founder nodded or shook her head, Linkali did not see. She did not particularly _want_ to see, either. She kept her gaze on the floor beside her seat as she spoke. "You gave me those books with his story because you wanted me to be interested in what he did, didn't you?" she muttered, feeling the fiery seed of irritation begin to take root inside her. "You wanted me to learn the stories that no one else in Kokoria Village had ever heard. You wanted me to think of him as being heroic and brave and a man to be admired, because you wanted me to wish to be like he was. You chose well—those books really did paint the Hero in a good light."

Linkali glanced at the old woman out of the corner of her eyes. Aldez's tranquil appearance was starting to crumble slightly, probably due to the somewhat accusatory tone her young guest had taken. She sat not with her back against the back of the chair, but leaned forwards. Her head was a little lower now, and her shoulders looked tenser than before. But there was no anger in her eyes—just patient calm. Lin kept going, having sensed no imminent danger.

"Yesterday, you gave me the Master Sword—the Hero's blade. You want me to feel more like him; I knew things about him that most people in Hyrule don't, and now I had the very sword he used in his quest." Linkali shook her head. As the words left her, she felt the burn of anger begin to fade. It felt good for her to say what she meant without trying to sugar-coat it, although a little bit of sweetness probably wouldn't have hurt. "I think we can safely say that failed on your part, though. The Master Sword is dead, just like its wielder. It has no spirit, no power…it's just a broken old sword. No one will ever dare to re-forge it, for fear of the Evil King's wrath; it's going to stay shattered and be just as useless to anyone who owns it as it was to the Hero of Time."

Linkali assumed that Aldez would take these words with the same quiet tolerance that she bore everything else in life; as such, the youth did not bother to check her reaction. The tension in Aldez's shoulders had increased, and a deepening furrow had appeared between her thin eyebrows. Her jaw was also clenched.

"And going back to those books you gave me, Aldez," Lin added, unaware of the elder's growing ire. "You realize that I read them, of course. Do you know how the Hero is described when he awakens seven years into the future?" She shook her head, feeling a hot flick of cruel mischief lick at her heart. She spoke her next words dryly, indicating the features they described on her own body. "He was tall and lean, with long legs. He looked thin and weak, but he was much stronger than he first appeared. He had dark blonde hair"—in the low light of the kitchen, she twisted a few strands idly in a way that she knew would give them their peculiar golden sheen—"cut with two tufts in the front and the longer strands gathered in the back. And, most importantly, he had _dark blue eyes_ that could hide _nothing_."

Briefly, she turned back to Aldez and gestured at her own eyes. Without enlisting any energy in reading the expression on the old woman's face, she turned her gaze to the side once more. (If she didn't look at the elder, she could keep talking if Aldez tried to interrupt, because she wouldn't see any of her hand motions.) Aldez was mute, not blind; anyone in the village who could see knew that Linkali's eyes never lied. It was that very attribute that bothered Lin the most, for the books Aldez had given her specifically stated that the Hero of Time had honest eyes—that every emotion that was not expressed with his body was displayed in his eyes, and every feeling he tried to hide was plain for all to see. (Linkali remembered she had felt a little glad to read that she was not the only one to bear the curse of the soul-eyes.)

"You think I look like him, don't you?" she asked, and without really realizing or intending to do so, she put a much sharper edge of accusation on her voice. "And maybe I do—but what of it?" She laughed. "People tell me I look like I could be the child of Gotari's sister, but I'm not related to her at all, just like I have no relation to the Hero. He was him, and I'm me; there's nothing, no connection between us." She shrugged laxly. "And frankly, I'm glad of that. The Hero of Time isn't exactly the kind of person you'd be happy to trace your family back to. There's a lot of shame associated with that."

Aldez was more than tense now; her every muscle was so taut that it gave her the appearance of being cut from rock rather than made of flesh. Her arms were trembling slightly, her hands tight fists of controlled anger. Her face was still turned towards Lin, and her clear blue eyes were as tranquil as they always were, though when the Hylian girl continued speaking, Aldez bowed her head and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Linkali leaned back in her chair and stared at the tabletop mildly. "I don't doubt that you've heard what people say about the Hero," she said. "People say that as a warrior, he was a failure of legendary proportions. He went into the Evil King's castle with the fate of Hyrule hinging on his victory, and he let the entire kingdom down. Because of his shortcomings, every Hylian born after his death would know only the darkness and suffering of Ganon's rule. He had his chance to change the world, and he blew it—and now we all have to suffer because of it."

Oblivious to the old woman before her who was steadily growing angrier with each passing minute, Linkali continued, "My parents told me that it's wrong to think of him like that, though. They told me and my sister that we shouldn't hate the Hero of Time because he did not go into battle with the intent to fail us all. He wanted to defeat Ganon and free Hyrule…but he just went about it wrong. He should have known better than to go up against the Evil King alone, magical sword or not. He was just a fool—a good-hearted and well-intentioned fool, but a fool nonetheless." Aldez flinched each time Lin said the word _fool_, but the girl didn't see. "He was a fool to think that he could defeat King Ganon on his own, and he was a fool for not fleeing the battle. I mean, really, how stupid do you have to be to continue fighting against an opponent that's clearly outmatching you?"

Aldez was now quaking not only from the tightness of her muscles, but also from the shuddering sobs that racked her old body. Several wet spots marred the white fabric in her lap, and her wrinkled cheeks were streaked with shining tear tracks. Her expression was not full of the pained angst of a mourning woman, but rather full of anger, for she was now baring her clenched teeth like an aggressive dog; indeed, it almost looked like Aldez was crying tears of pure rage to hear her Hero so maligned. But through it all, she managed to contain everything and keep herself reasonably under control; she did not whimper or sniffle, and that was why her pain went completely unnoticed by the teen sitting across from her.

"So, really, Aldez," Linkali said, "I'm a little offended by what I think you're implying: that I have something that connects me to the Hero. I don't think he was a failure, per say—but at the same time, he really was. He didn't _intend_ to be killed and have all of Hyrule suffer…but that's what happened, and it _is_ his fault in a sense. I don't see why you seem to think I have some kind of connection with the Hero of Time, and even if I did, I don't want to really hear about it. I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but you have to understand that the last thing I want is to be compared to that idiotic, overachieving—"

Linkali broke off there as Aldez suddenly stood up and slammed her hands forcefully down on the table with a thunderous _bang_. The loud noise and swiftness of the movement nearly startled Lin out of her chair, and she stared at Aldez with a combination of surprise and fear. The old Hylian was shaking fiercely with rage where she stood, breathing heavily through her gritted teeth. Her long fingers were quirked like claws and, when coupled with her thrust-back shoulders, bared teeth, and taut muscles, made her look like an angry lioness ready to strike. As Linkali watched, a single, ragged sob wrenched out of the old woman, and she turned her eyes to the girl before her. Lin suddenly felt very small, very vulnerable, and _very_ apologetic (though she wasn't entirely sure what she had done).

"A-Aldez," she stuttered. "I-I'm sorry…What did I s—?"

Before she could finish the question, the furious elder drew up her right arm. For an instant, Linkali feared that she was about to be slapped across the face for her insolence. Never mind the table that separated them—Aldez was going to find a way to do it! But the blow never landed; instead of striking, the mute Hylian thrust her arm in the direction of the door and pointed. Her entire arm shook, as if Aldez's stopping at simply indicating the location of the exit took a great deal of self-control and effort; Lin wondered if the elder really _did_ want to lash out at her physically.

_Something tells me I shouldn't stick around to find that out,_ Linkali thought. She scrambled to her feet, almost sending her chair clattering to the floor in her haste. Aldez began walking around the side of the table; Lin began side-stepping down the hall as swiftly as she could, like a child who is about to be spanked protects their backside, keeping one eye warily on the old woman following after her. Her steps quickened as she walked, until she was all but running towards the end of the hallway. She pulled the door open, turned her back on Aldez, and burst out onto the front porch. Before she could release the knob, the door slammed shut behind her, and the sudden force behind it almost sent the youth toppling onto her face.

Linkali sighed and stuck one thumb under her belt, leaving the other hand to dangle at her side. _I could have handled that a lot better than I did,_ she told herself. _I should have phrased things a bit more delicately, too. Aldez _would_ be offended by someone badmouthing the Hero of Time—she cared enough about him to have his story and his sword._ She shook her head and began walking down the front steps.

The Hylian youth knew that she could have done better, but she wondered just _how much_ better she could have done. She was still tired from her restless night, and lack of sleep had made her careless and a little cranky. She hadn't thought terribly hard while she had been speaking with Aldez, and that had resulted in her not only ignoring the elder's _building_ rage (for Linkali doubted Aldez was capable of temper flares) but also in saying some fairly stupid things. Lin heaved a sigh and glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. She hated to think that what happened today would ruin what had been shaping up to be such a wonderful friendship between her and the village founder. She would have to apologize—would tomorrow be too soon? Linkali found herself feeling ashamed and guilty, and longed for the gentle comfort that the sympathetic elder had often provided. But she couldn't knock on that door, not now.

"I didn't think it was possible to piss off Aldez," a voice from the common declared.

"Hey, Bartal," Linkali said without turning. When she did look at the boy, he was sauntering toward her with a cocky grin on his face. He applauded.

"You might be the first person who's ever made the village founder _visibly angry,_" he told her, draping a friendly arm around her shoulders and rubbing her upper arm briskly. "I arrived on the scene just in time to see her chasing you out the door. What happened before that?"

"I made an idiot of myself," Lin told him. Bartal opened his mouth wide and grinned, inhaling loudly as if preparing to make a comment. "And yes, that is different from the norm." Bartal closed his mouth and made an exaggerated droop. Linkali couldn't help herself; she burst out laughing and embraced her friend tightly.

"You know what you could use?" the Hylian boy asked. "I'll tell you: Some hillboarding. A couple of death-defying runs down the hills around Kokoria, and you'll be so glad you're still alive that nothing will be able to get you down. Not to mention that it'll help you forget about whatever just happened between you and Aldez—all of your thinking energy will be spent on staying alive."

Linkali grinned and started off in the direction of her house, eager to grab her board. Bartal was right; she needed to get out and clear her head before she did anything else. Although, the other youth was wrong on one count: It wasn't cheating injury that would make Lin happy, it was being with her friend.

* * *

"So, I'm thinking about making Coren a board of his own and teaching him how to hillboard," Bartal said as he swerved nimbly around a tree stump in his path. "I haven't told my mom yet, though, since I don't know how she'll react to it."

"She'll probably react like any sensible mother and put a stop to it," Linkali replied bluntly. Bartal laughed.

"You know something, Lin? You go on and on about how dangerous hillboarding is, and how reckless we are for doing it, and how no sensible person would ever practice this sport." He paused momentarily as his board hit a bump in the ground. He rocketed upwards, gripping the edge of his board firmly, and spun in a complete circle before coming down to land and continue his run. "You say all those things," he repeated, "and yet _you_ hillboard, and do so gladly. What does that say about you?"

Linkali carved to the side, zooming up the face of a small rise. She balanced on the edge of the ridge and even slid along it for a few moments. As she was coming back down the rise, she said, "I'm pretty sure it says that I frequently ignore the common sense my parents instilled in me."

"Or that you're a hypocrite with a double standard," the boy teased. Lin narrowed her eyes playfully and glided dangerously close to her friend's board. Bartal swerved aside to avoid her, but the girl persisted, following him in a curving path down the hillside. The mock chase ended with Bartal feinting to the left, only to lean swiftly in the opposite direction when Lin moved to follow his first curve. "But, going back to what I was saying before, I'm not sure how long I should make his board. I mean, Coren is growing like crazy, so if I make the board to fit him, he'll only outgrow it in a few months; on the other hand, if I make it too long, he won't be able to actually use it until he grows into it."

"Does Coren even _want_ to learn how to hillboard?" Linkali asked curiously.

Bartal laughed, and it was clear he hadn't asked the young boy before he had started making plans. "Even if he doesn't, he's going to," he declared. "Hey, if you give me thirty Rupees for the wood, I'll make a board for Tali, too!"

To this, Linkali cut around sharply in front of her friend, crashing their boards together and nearly knocking Bartal's out from under his feet. He reeled backwards with a startled cry, but Lin was quick to grab his hand and stop him from falling. She yanked his arm, and the boy hopped swiftly onto her board, placing his feet so that his stance overlapped hers, in a sense. The two of them leaned downhill, in hot pursuit of Bartal's runaway hillboard, which was zooming over the grass about six feet ahead of them. The two teens' combined weight greatly increased the speed at which the board beneath their feet moved; the whooshing roar of the wind filled Linkali's pointed ears and made her hood snap behind her like a whip. She heard her friend laugh loudly behind her, and grinned. It wasn't long before they had caught up with Bartal's board; Lin moved her board so that the two of them were parallel, with about a foot-wide gap between them. She glanced over her shoulder at the other Hylian youth. "Ready?" she asked.

"Born that way!" was the enthusiastic response. Bartal rested one hand on Linkali's shoulder to steady himself, and lunged for his board feet-first. He spun in the air so that he was facing Lin and landed squarely on it. (Bartal rode with his right foot in front; Linkali was the opposite way, and she liked it because it meant they could face each other and talk while they boarded.) "You always pull that stunt, Lin."

"Because I'm good at it!" the young woman retorted smugly, winking at the boy. Bartal raised an eyebrow; Lin knew that it wouldn't be long before he tried a dangerous, daredevil stunt from his lengthy list. As she zipped down the hill and tried to predict the unpredictable, Linkali realized that her confrontation with Aldez from earlier that morning no longer seemed to bother her. Bartal had been right—hillboarding had truly done her more good than harm (although if she wasn't careful, that could change). She knew that tomorrow she would have to make amends with the old woman, but for the moment, that didn't worry her as much. She was happy to have the time to spend with Bartal, to be reckless and free, without a care in the world.

* * *

The next morning saw Linkali standing in front of Aldez's door, with Bartal standing behind her for emotional support. The boy, of course, had no intention of actually going into the house with his friend; despite Lin's frequent insistence that the old woman was perfectly friendly, he preferred to avoid Aldez, as he always had. As Linkali raised her fist to knock at the door, Bartal began edging back off the porch. He stopped a few feet away from the last step and stood with his arms folded over his chest.

Lin gave the door a double-knock, her heart beginning to thump painfully in her chest as she waited for the door to open. She hadn't slept well last night either; her guilt over her carelessness and failure to recognize Aldez's obvious anger had kept her tossing and turning again. She had vowed not to make the same mistake twice and let tiredness make her tongue careless, and she knew she would be more careful this time when she spoke to the elder. In between her bouts of fitful, unfulfilling sleep, Lin had run through everything she wanted to say—every point she wanted to bring up, every apology she wanted to make. She'd spent a good amount of her wakeful night trying to think of just what she had done wrong, and just how she was going to make amends for it.

For a few minutes, Linkali was left in painful indecision. Had she knocked too softly? Or had Aldez seen her from the window (the girl couldn't be sure of this, since her eyes had been riveted on the door in front of her)? If so, was she purposely ignoring the youth standing on her front porch? It hurt to think that the old woman would shun her so bluntly—although, Lin reflected, her words had seemed to cut Aldez very deeply, so if that was the case, then anger was justified response. But what if she had simply knocked too softly, and Aldez just hadn't heard her? If that was the case, then it would be perfectly acceptable to knock a second time…but if the old woman knew who was standing outside her door and was consciously ignoring her, then rapping again would only agitate her. Linkali raised her fist, drew it back, raised it, drew it back…

The door opened a crack, and one of Aldez's ocean-deep eyes appeared in the space.

The Hylian youth in front of the door froze for a second, aching with guilt and sadness. The little bit of Aldez's face that she could see looked eons older than Lin remembered, and the sorrow that filled the single blue eye broke her heart. She swallowed hard. "H-hello, Aldez," she whispered.

Aldez opened the door a little bit wider and stepped into full view. Linkali felt her breath catch in her throat. The old woman truly looked defeated; she stood with her shoulders slumped and her head held low. The warm, mysterious glow was gone from her eyes, and they were dull with sorrow and disappointment. Her lined face looked even more wrinkled, and somewhat pale, as if the healthy glow from within had been drained away with her happiness. Lin gulped again. "There's…I need to speak with you," she murmured. "And my pride won't let me say what I need to say where others can hear. May I…come in?"

Aldez sighed softly. For a minute, Linkali was reminded of the less-than-affectionate nickname she and Bartal had coined for the village founder—"the Woman of Sighs." That was how she used to think of Aldez: a mournful, mute elder who never made any attempt to communicate with anyone. How wrong she had been…It hurt her now to think of the Aldez she had grown to love—the animated, friendly, wise old woman who spoke frequently and openly with her hands and smile—and to compare that image to the old Hylian standing before her. While she was thinking these thoughts, Aldez, without meeting Lin's eyes, gestured inside her home. Linkali whispered her thanks and stepped inside. She made her way to the kitchen, but did not sit in her usual chair. She did not want Aldez to think that she was comfortable and at ease; she almost wanted her adult friend to see just how miserable she herself was feeling. But Aldez motioned to the chair, and settled down in the one opposite it. Somewhat reluctantly, Lin took a seat, setting her hands limply on the tabletop.

"There is a lot of I have to be sorry for," Linkali said softly. She struggled to lift her gaze to meet Aldez's, but found that she could not. "Yesterday, when I spoke to you, I said a lot of things that I shouldn't have, and I want to apologize for them." She sighed brokenly. "For starters, I should never have taken the tone of voice that I did; it was not only incredibly disrespectful to you, but it also thoroughly inappropriate. Even if I thought you were implying something by giving me the things you did, I shouldn't have accused you the way I did. It was childish and stupid, not to mention disrespectful. For that, I apologize."

Lin managed a glance up at Aldez's face. Some of the sorrow had lifted from her expression—though there was still plenty left—and she almost looked a little hopeful. The youth dropped her eyes again. She hesitated for a moment; the next part of her apology was the harder of the two to say, and it dealt a much harsher blow to her pride. "Also, I want to apologize to you for…what I said about the Hero of Time," she continued. "I would love to blame my careless words on the fact that I had not slept well the night before, but I'm almost an adult, and it isn't right for me to try and pass along blame; my words are my own fault, and I take full responsibility for whatever pain they caused you." She licked her lips nervously and swallowed hard. "The things I said were hateful and hurtful, and though I didn't say them with intent to hurt, they _have_ caused pain."

Again, the girl hesitated, a little unsure of whether or not she should say the sentence lurking on her tongue. She'd been debating it on and off all night, wondering if it was too presumptuous or if it was spot-on. She heard Aldez shifting in her seat, and threw caution to the wind. "I've gotten the feeling that the Hero was a special person for you," she said. "That he…meant a lot to you." Her eyes flicked up briefly, and she saw Aldez nodding slowly. That emboldened her, and she found it easier to lift her gaze to meet the old woman's. Blue eyes locked over the kitchen table in the silent kitchen; Linkali bit her lower lip. Her voice quivered slightly when she spoke next. "And that makes the things I said all the worse, because I was slandering someone you held dear in your heart. I want to apologize for insulting the memory of the Hero of Time." Aldez nodded again, slowly and calmly. Linkali dropped her eyes again and looked to the side. "I hope that someday you'll be able to forgive me for what I said…"

In the silence that followed those words, Linkali felt a warmth descend upon her hands. She looked at them to see Aldez's gloved hands lying overtop her own. The old woman gently moved her grip so that her fingers slid between those of the girl sitting across from her; she pulled their palms together and clasped them close. Lin felt the tingling tickle in her left hand hum at the contact, and for once, it didn't bother her at all. She shifted her gaze up at met the eyes of the old woman. Aldez was smiling warmly at her, her cerulean eyes speaking more comfort than words could ever hope to. Linkali knew that the elder had accepted her apology, and that any division between them had ceased to exist. It warmed her heart; she hadn't realized just how much old Aldez had come to mean to her until she had feared losing that friendship.

All of the sorrow seemed to have left the elder's being. She was her old self once more: calm, poised, graceful, and gentle. Her shoulders were level, her chin was lifted, and her whole body again had that regal air about it. The pained sadness was gone from her eyes, replaced by their usual glow of peace and wisdom, and the affection that Linkali knew was reserved for her alone. The Hylian girl had to wonder if the depression she'd seen earlier had been but a clever act; it certainly wouldn't surprise Lin if Aldez had pulled the wool that far over her eyes. Something told her, though, that the village founder truly had been sorrowful, and that the honest apology she had received had lightened her heart.

The minutes ticked past, but the two Hylian women did not seem to notice their passing. They sat with their fingers interlinked, palms pressed together, feeling and sharing their warmth. Linkali glanced at the back of her left hand mildly. She found she didn't mind the strange buzzing tickle that crawled across her hand; it was a sensation she had come to associate with Aldez, and the connection was nothing but pleasant.

Aldez was the first to break away from the hand-embrace, though it was not for long. With a serene smile, she took Linkali's left hand and slid her right hand under it; she pressed her left overtop of it and held the girl's hand between her two. The strange sensation increased tenfold, and the warmth that accompanied it grew to a rather pleasant heat. Linkali got the sense that something deep within her was humming, purring like a sleepy cat in the warmth. It was a strange feeling, one that would ordinarily put her on edge; here, though, it intrigued her rather than disturbed her. The longer Aldez's hands were in contact with her own, the stronger the feelings grew, until Linkali felt as if they were filling her entire body. She glanced down at the small pile of hands, and for a second, swore she could see a faint golden aura surrounding them. Before she could be totally sure, though, the old woman withdrew her hands and folded them together on the tabletop.

Lin rubbed her left hand curiously, startled and amazed at the powerful feelings that still seemed to hum through her veins (albeit a little less strongly than before). She looked up at Aldez, and was surprised to see a knowing smile spread across the old Hylian's face. "Aldez, you've got a secret," Linkali teased playfully. The woman put her hands on her chest and put on a shocked face. "Yes, you. I can see it in that smile of yours. Let me in on it…please?"

Aldez smirked, and a flicker of mischief danced flirtatiously in her blue eyes. She took a long breath in and released it just as slowly. Then, she pointed out the window, her finger roughly lining up with the angle of the sun. She held up her other hand—flat—and moved her finger in an arc through the air until it came to rest beneath her hand. Linkali nodded in understanding. Aldez then indicated Lin; after a pause, she made a grasping and swinging motion with her left hand, pointing to the air around her closed fist. Lin paused before she nodded.

"Let me just make sure I understood that: You want me to come back after sunset," she murmured; Aldez nodded. "And…bring the sword?" Again, the old woman bobbed her head. Linkali grinned. "And _then_ you'll tell me everything I want to know?"

Aldez winked at the young woman, flicking her index finger through the air as if it were a tiny whip she was snapping. Linkali laughed. "All right! I'll see you later tonight, then, Aldez."

The old Hylian pushed herself out of her seat, sweeping over to Lin's side with all her familiar grace and smoothness. Linkali did not hesitate before she embraced the mute woman, and she felt Aldez pull her in just as tightly. It felt wonderful to be on good standing with the elder again; even though their falling-out had been considerably brief, it had hurt just as much as Lin imagined years of separation might. Her friendship with Aldez seemed… somehow familiar, somehow right. As if it had lasted far longer than the few weeks Linkali knew it had, and meant more than a simple bond between a young and old woman.

Perhaps it had something to do with what Aldez promised to reveal to her that evening. Linkali could only guess, but some gut instinct told her that her feelings were dead-on.


	9. 8: The Revelation

Kokoria Village was dark beneath the clouded sky. It was late in the evening—not quite night yet, but certainly no longer day—when Linkali decided to leave her house to visit Aldez. The Hylian youth stood in front of her window, tapping her foot against the wooden floor and frowning in thought. She had retrieved the Master Sword from the bottom of her wardrobe and strapped the sheathed blade to the back of the belt across her hips; its weight and swing was unfamiliar, but not totally unpleasant. Was there anything else Aldez had asked her to bring, other than the sword? Well, no…but was there anything that she _should_ bring, just to be prepared? Lin shook her head. _No,_ she told herself. _Aldez would have told me if she thought I would need anything else. All I need is the Master Sword._ She nodded to herself and slowly raised her window. With the ease and flexibility of a motion that has been practiced frequently over many years, the girl ducked smoothly through the open window and stepped out onto the ledge beneath. She closed it after her quietly, and began climbing down the corner of the house like a thief in reverse.

Most Kokorians had eaten dinner by now, and were lounging about the house with their family. The golden glow of their lamps and lights spilled out onto the ground below the windows, turning the moon-washed grass a warm yellow color. Linkali avoided the light, sneaking swiftly through the shadows with one hand on the hilt of the sword behind her. It was one thing if someone saw her—if they saw the blade she carried, things would get complicated. She couldn't afford to be seen.

Aldez's house was just ahead. Lin slipped around the side of the house, avoiding the open ground of the village common for the sake of secrecy. She crept up to the door, glancing furtively around at the quiet village. No one else seemed to be out, which relaxed her somewhat. Softly, Linkali rapped her fist on the front door three times; her heart jerked worriedly with each knock, for every sound she heard was magnified by her fear of being seen. She contemplated hiding in the shadows beside the small porch until the door opened, but before she could act on the impulse, she heard the knob turn. The door opened partway and Aldez peered out into the twilight. She spotted Lin standing there and opened the door more fully.

Linkali eagerly stepped inside the house, shivering a little. Her mind had been so focused on making it to the village founder's home unnoticed that she hadn't really noticed just how chilly it was outside. Aldez smiled in greeting and indicated their usual speaking place with a sweep of her hand. When the girl walked over to the table, she noticed a stack of perhaps ten sheets of paper, a pot of ink, and a small selection of fine quill pens resting in front of the spot where Aldez normally sat. This made Lin curious; whatever the elder wanted to tell her about was either too lengthy or too complex to be related with hand motions.

Turning away from the writing materials on the tabletop, the young Hylian saw Aldez coming towards her with the tea tray in her hands. She set it down gently on the table and handed Linkali a cup. Yet another thing that intrigued the girl: This was the first time Aldez had actually brought over the entire set; usually, she just poured a single cup for her guest and herself. Did this mean that what the old woman wanted to say would take longer than their normal conversations, and would require more tea?

Before she sat down, Lin undid the straps of the Master Sword and set the sheathed blade on the table beside her. Aldez eyed the sword with approval, smiling at the girl and nodding her thanks. She sat down in her chair, then motioned for Linkali to bring her seat closer. The youth obeyed, moving her chair until it was next to Aldez's. The old Hylian picked up the first of her quills and fidgeted with her grip on it for a few moments; she seemed a little distracted by something, some memory that seemed to be causing her pain. Linkali rested a comforting hand on her knee, and after flashing the youth a grateful smile, Aldez dipped into the ink and began to write.

_It is hard for me to write these words,_ she inscribed slowly,_ for the one whose silence I honor did not know how to write, but the vow I took after he died must be broken tonight._

Linkali rested her hand overtop the old woman's lightly to stop her from writing anything further for the moment. "Wait…you mean it's true?" she asked. Aldez tipped her head curiously to the side. "The story that gets tossed around—that you're only mute because the man you loved was unable to speak. It's true?"

_Yes,_ Aldez replied on her page. _But as the years have gone by—for truly, it has been one-hundred and fifty years since his death—I found that I truly have gone mute. That is why I am writing these words: I could not speak them to you, no matter how hard I may try._

"The one you loved…It was the Hero, wasn't it?" Lin asked. Aldez smiled softly. "I remember reading about it in those books you gave me; the Hero of Time never spoke." Aldez nodded. "I didn't realize…_he_ was mute, though. So, to honor his memory, you stopped talking and writing?" Again, the elder nodded. "And you loved him."

_I did, although I am not sure if he returned those feelings. There was never enough time for me to ask him, and in those few places where I might have had the chance, my fear of rejection kept me silent._ She sighed. _But such is life. The Hero _(she paused here; Linkali got the impression that she would have otherwise written an ellipses) _my Hero _(again, Aldez hesitated) _is dead._

"I'm so sorry," Lin murmured, twining her fingers with those on the old woman's free hand. Aldez smiled gratefully up at her. "I can't imagine how much it must have hurt you when you found out that he had been killed."

_It destroyed me,_ Aldez wrote. _For many months afterward, I grieved him. I thought of all the things that had passed between us, and all of my wishing for more time with him only dragged me down lower. I wondered if there was anything I could have done that would have changed that night—if I could have done anything to prevent his death. _She shook her head. _Of course, there was really nothing, but like anyone else in mourning, I blamed myself for a time._

Aldez set down her quill, her shoulders quivering as the years of buried pain were exhumed. Linkali embraced her tightly, staring at the wall as the woman trembled in her arms. After a few minutes, the old Hylian began leaning back. Lin released her; the look Aldez gave her was full of so much gratitude that she did not need to write her thanks.

"You knew the Hero well, it seems," she said softly.

_I saw him numerous times, both when we were children and after he had spent seven years in the Sacred Realm,_ Aldez replied. _When he had awakened as the Hero of Time, he did not recognize me when I would appear to him. It hurt me to see him so suspicious of me at first, but as time went on he began to trust me again and even respect me as an ally. I was unable to reveal myself to him fully until he had awakened all of the six Sages; I hope that it is not just wishful thinking when I say that I think he was genuinely glad to see me again._

"Why _couldn't_ you have revealed yourself sooner?"

_It was too dangerous. I was in hiding at the time, and I had assumed another identity in order to protect myself from Ganon. _

Linkali nodded in understanding. Aldez looked down at what she had written so far and took a clean sheet of paper from the stack. _Earlier today, when you came to apologize to me, I was unable to offer my own apologies,_ she wrote.

"You don't have anything to—" Lin began, only to be cut off when Aldez whapped her with the feather quill. The old woman scrunched her lips to the side.

_I have plenty to apologize for,_ she wrote. _For one thing, I must apologize for being so mysterious and indirect with you. I would love to blame it on habits I acquired during the seven years I spent deceiving the Hero, but those times are so far behind me that they could be considered ancient history. I guess I was just afraid to say directly what I've needed to say, and so I tried to dodge around it and let you draw conclusions for yourself. _She paused. _Truth be told, I also wanted you to gain a deeper understanding of the Hero before you learned of what lies before you. However, it was rude of me to lead you on with little hints and clues; it would have been better for both of us if I had simply told you outright._

"Told me _what_ outright?" Linkali queried. "_What_ lies before me?" She contemplated telling Aldez that she was acting as mysteriously as she had just apologized for being, but something told her the woman already knew.

Aldez paused, running her quill along the side of her wrinkled cheek in thought. _I wish there were another way for me to tell you this without having to be blunt, Lin,_ she scratched. The Hylian youth noticed how her hand seemed to waver at the end of the name, as if there were another rune she would have liked to add to it—a rune that would cause it to spell not "Linkali", but "Link." _But, as hard as I try, I cannot seem to come up with one._

"Don't be afraid of being blunt," Linkali assured her. "My mother says it's the only way I'll ever understand anything…which I guess explains why I still haven't figured out what you want with me."

_Very well. I shall be blunt._ Aldez took in a deep breath, just like someone preparing to state a truth that the listener might find unsavory. She set the pen back down on paper. _Lin, you are the Incarnation of the Hero of Time. _

Linkali froze, half-expecting some torrent of memories and visions from a past life to flood her mind. But nothing came to her; no changes swept over her and transformed her into a Hero in his second coming. She remained a seventeen year-old girl sitting in a kitchen with an old woman, listening to the faint ticking of the hall clock, tasting her last sip of tea, smelling the mysterious smoke of Aldez's incense. She stayed still, her heart pounding in her ears. Her brain seemed to buzz with echoes of the frantic, disbelieving _"WHAT?!"_ that was dying to escape her throat. She swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath. Aldez had written more.

_You carry a piece of his fighting spirit within you, the piece of him that marked him as the chosen Hero. You are not, and never really will be, the Hero of Time. Nor are you a reincarnation of him; rather, you are the part of him that Destiny chose to save the land, given life again. You are not the Hero…but you share his destiny of freeing Hyrule from Ganon's grasp._

Linkali stared off into the distance, her heart tumbling in her chest, her mind boiling with confusion. She didn't know what to think or say; the numbing shock of the revelation had frozen her fast. She felt a light tap on her arm, and saw that Aldez had penned a single sentence on the page:

_Do you believe me?_

"Do I believe you," Lin repeated dully. She rose from her seat and began pacing—slowly, heavy-footed—beside the table. "You know, the things you've told me so far seem…almost too strange to be true. I mean, me—Lin, the daughter of a goat-breeder from a poor village—carrying a part of the spirit of the legendary Hero of Time? A girl who's never raised a sword except to cut down cornstalks, the heir to the Blade of Evil's Bane?"

Aldez's face grew concerned, almost a little worried. She rested her index finger beside the single question she'd written; she was asking it a second time. _Do you believe me?_

Linkali turned her back on the mute Hylian, her dark blue eyes flicking from floor to ceiling as if seeking her next words somewhere between the two points. She closed her eyes, folding one arm over her belly and cradling her forehead in the hand of the other. She exhaled slowly, quietly. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "I mean…like I said before, it all seems too impossible to believe. I don't feel like a Hero, and I certainly don't act like one, and it doesn't seem reasonable that the spirit of the great Hero of Time"—she hoped she didn't sound as sarcastic as she thought she might—"would be born into a girl from the village. But, Aldez…I find that I can't discount it entirely, because you're one of the—"

Lin froze; her eyes snapped open and grew round with amazement. "One of the _wisest_ people in Kokoria Village," she finished in a whisper. Pieces were falling into place in the youth's mind rapidly and firmly, filling in the gaps between her thoughts and showing an image that she wasn't sure she wanted to see. "Wise, wise, wisdom…" She shook her head firmly, turning on her heel to face Aldez, who was gazing levelly back at her with her cool, blue eyes. "But…that's _impossible_. No—no, you can't be her! You're _old _enough to be…but you couldn't…"

_Who can't I be?_ Aldez wrote with a grin.

Linkali gawked at the old woman, thinking over everything she knew of the cryptic, silent lady. The way she smiled. The way she walked. The regal cant of her head and the glow in her eyes. The straight bars and perfect squares of her handwriting—which was crabbed by years without practice, but still far tidier than that of anyone else in the village. Lin gazed at Aldez, who offered her a mysterious smile. She wondered why she hadn't thought of it before; as obscure a thought as it seemed, here and now, it struck her as being perfectly reasonable. She returned to the table and pointed at the old Hylian. When she spoke, her voice started in strong, but quickly lost volume when she realized what she was saying. "You…Aldez isn't your name. It's Zelda—Princess Zelda, bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom and the one true heir to the Hyrulian throne."

The long-deposed monarch's smile blossomed into a loving grin as she took in the girl standing before her. She held the broad smile—it seemed like every one of her straight, white teeth was visible—for a few moments, then toned it down and nodded sedately. _I was wondering when you would figure it out,_ she wrote. _My name should have given you a clue. After all, "Aldez" is an anagram of "Zelda."_ When Linkali tried to drop respectfully to her knees, the old Hylian smacked her sharply upside the head with her quill (and her hand at the end of the strike) and scowled. She waited until the girl's eyes were on the paper, then added, _Don't be that way. I'm not a princess…not anymore. I'm not sure I even remember how to act like royalty._

A little confused, Lin settled herself back into her chair. Aldez—Zelda—smiled gently. _I was there when the Hero of Time was killed,_ she wrote, and her smile faded out swiftly. _The Master Sword was broken; I knew that I could either take the sword and hold it until its next wielder was chosen, or I could take his body and try to find someone who could bring him back to life._ She flipped her open palm towards the blue and gold sheath. _The spirit of wisdom guided me to take the Sword. I resented having to make that choice at first, but over the years I've come to realize that if I had taken Link, there would never be any hope of defeating Ganon, for the Master Sword is the only weapon that can truly destroy him._

Zelda took another sheet of paper. _When I fled Ganon's tower with the broken blade, I did not know where I could go for safety. I spent the remainder of the night at Lon Lon Ranch, in the stable with the horses,_ she continued. _The ranch owner, Malon—_

"The same Malon that the people of Lonran claim as their founder?" Linkali interrupted. She paused, frowning briefly in thought. "Wait a minute…Lon _Lon Ran_ch, Lonran." Her eyes jolted open wide. "That village used to be a ranch?"

_Yes,_ the old woman replied in ink, skipping down a line. _Malon learned that if she agreed to submit to Ganon's rule, he would allow her to keep running the ranch she loved. Ingo, the ranch's previous owner, was destroyed by Ganon—he gambled with and lost one of the ranch's prized horses on a race against the Hero of Time, and paid for his error with his life._ Zelda shook her head. _Over time, Malon took in a number of refugees from Kakariko and other places to help her run the ranch, and after a few decades, it became a village under the name of Lonran._

"I never knew," Lin whispered. Zelda nodded.

_The ranch owner, Malon, was a great help to me,_ she continued, drawing a line from the sentence she'd started before the youth's sudden question to where she was now writing. _Once I was able to tell her who I was and what had happened, she sheltered me and helped me to stay hidden. You see…for weeks after that fateful night, I was a wreck and couldn't really take care of myself._

"I would be, too," Linkali told her. "To see someone you loved be struck down before your eyes…"

_Yes. It was after I had recovered under Malon's care that I decided to take on a vow of silence. She agreed that it was a touching way to honor the mute Hero, although looking back now, I think she found it to be a bit extreme._ Zelda rubbed her chin thoughtfully. _After I was fit to care for myself, Malon took me to Kakariko and introduced me to the villagers there as Aldez—a name we had both agreed on. When I appeared to them, people accepted me as a voiceless stranger, because I had fled Hyrule when Ganon took over; none of them had seen me after those seven years. Malon helped me convince some people to join me in starting this village of Kokoria._

"Why start a new village?" Lin asked curiously. "Why not just settle down there? It would have been easier."

_I knew that Kakariko would not last, _Zelda responded. _It had two strikes against it. Firstly, Death Mountain, which was dangerously close to eruption, was frighteningly close by. Secondly, the entrance to the Shadow Temple was within the graveyard just outside the village. Neither of those places would be harmless for long after Ganon's only opposition was defeated. So I distanced myself from them—from just about every place in Hyrule with a Temple full of monsters, really—and chose the corner of Hyrule Field behind the ranch. And just as I had feared, it wasn't long after Link's death that monsters began to swarm in the Temples of Hyrule. People fled Kakariko and chose to live either with Malon or myself._

"So that's how Kokoria Village was born," the Hylian girl mused softly. Zelda nodded. "But Al—Pri—Zelda," she stammered. The first time, she'd caught herself; the second time, Zelda had pointed her finger angrily at her. (Linkali reminded herself that Zelda had expressly said she was no longer a princess, and figured that was why she had objected.) "Zelda, why did you stay in Hyrule?"

Zelda smiled, and the expression on her face was no different from what Lin had seen on that of Aldez; the two separate identities were truly one and the same. Her answer was written with the same mysteriousness that Aldez's smiles often held: _Because I was waiting for you._

"Wh—waiting for me?" Linkali repeated.

_Well, not exactly __for __you__,_ the old Hylian wrote. _At the time, I did not know exactly who would be chosen by Destiny to carry the Hero's spirit, but I knew that I would only find them in this land. So I settled down to wait._

"How would you know when the next person had been chosen?"

_I would feel it. The Triforce of Wisdom within me would resonate in the presence of the Hero's spirit, for his piece of the Triforce—Courage—was bound forever to him._ Zelda shrugged. _Over the years, many have been born bearing his fighting spirit, but none have lasted._

"What do you mean?" Lin asked nervously. Zelda gave her a comforting smile and took another sheet of paper.

_The Triforce of Courage is a difficult force to contain,_ she replied. _It is not only highly selective of who can carry it, but it also demands much of its bearer and its demands are sometimes difficult to understand. The Hero was lucky; he had grown up without it, and by the time is entered his body, he was old enough and intelligent enough to handle it. Those who bore it after him met their demise in all manner of foolish ways. Many confused the courage within their hearts for immortality, and had their lives cut tragically short. Others understood what was asked of them, but died in their attempts because they were physically incapable. None of them ever learned of the power that lay within them; I never told any of them because I wanted to wait until they were older, a time which never came to pass._

"How…how old _were_ they?"

_Younger than you. All of them were. But as much as it pained me to see them all meet their ends so soon, deep down, I was a little glad that the Hero's spirit was holding out for someone who could manage the Triforce of Courage._ Zelda glanced at the worried girl sitting beside her. _And that someone is you, Lin._

"I don't understand," Linkali said, shaking her head. "What makes me different? Why have I outlived the others? It isn't like I'm more careful—I've told you all about the things Bartal and I do! I've never gotten the urge to save anything or be courageous, so it's not like I'm heeding the orders of a Triforce piece."

_Perhaps that is why you've lived this long,_ Zelda wrote calmly. _You are reckless when you are with Bartal, but you also know when enough is enough; you only do the daring things you do because you know you can do them, regardless of what others may think of your abilities. That is Courage—you are standing up for what you know is right, even if others do not agree with you. And perhaps it is the fact that you have never gone off on heroic ventures that has kept you alive; it takes Courage to go against what is right if you know cannot complete the task as you are._

"But Zelda, I'm a Hylian," Lin protested. "We're cowards—except for you, since you're from a different time."

_What about the time you went to Hyrule Field after sunset to look for a lost goat?_ Zelda asked. _You told me that you were not afraid, only nervous. You had courage that day, Lin; you had the courage to do what others feared._

"But it's not like I'm fearless. Zelda, I..." Linkali dropped her eyes somewhat sheepishly. She clenched her teeth shamefully around the sentence that had nearly slipped out of her mouth. It wasn't something she wanted to reveal to anyone, ever, no matter what, under pain of death. Zelda took the girl's hand in her own comfortingly; clearly, she had sensed the turmoil within the youth. Lin sighed. She decided that if she was going to tell this to anyone, it would have to be the village founder. Zelda would not judge her. "I...I'm afraid of thunderstorms. They don't make me nervous, like everyone thinks they do. They _scare_ me, they always have."

_It is strange that you should mention that,_ Zelda wrote. _When we were in the cellar and the thunder caught you by surprise, I suspected something unusual about it. The Hero of Time died on the night of a terrible thunderstorm, amid the lightning and rain._

"Really?" Zelda nodded. Lin frowned thoughtfully at the words on the page. What had always scared her about storms? Was it the way they made her feel vulnerable, or her tendency to see looming shadows in the lightning flares? Was it because the thunder had sounded like the growling of monsters to her when she was younger? She hadn't really thought about it until now; she'd always just accepted her fear of storms as being...well, a fear. But was it something more? Was it another thing that suggested a connection between her and the Hero? The girl sighed. It would make for a frightening coincidence, but she still wasn't totally sure of it. She looked back at Zelda.

The old woman paused. _Am I correct in assuming that you still doubt that you are the bearer of the Triforce of Courage?_ Linkali nodded, glancing away uncomfortably. Damn it—right on target! Zelda probably read it in her eyes; it wouldn't have been hard. _Let me ask you something. Does your hand start to tingle and itch when you're around me? And does it also being to feel warm?_

"H-how did you know?" the girl asked hesitantly. She was pretty sure something like _that_ wouldn't have shown in her gaze. "I know I rub at it a lot when I'm near you, but…how did you know about the warmth?"

_The feelings grow stronger the nearer you are, don't they?_

"Yes."

_Take off your glove, Lin. The left one._

Linkali, utterly bewildered by the unusual request, obeyed. Zelda also removed her left glove. She placed her bare hand on the table and motioned for Lin to do the same. The Hylian youth inched her buzzing hand closer, and as she did so, Zelda blew out the lantern that was lighting the area around the table. The room became darker, but not for long. A golden-white glow was beginning to grow between the two Hylian women, and the closer the girl moved her hand to Zelda's, the brighter and more defined it grew. Linkali drew in breath in a ragged gasp of shock, and felt a chill sweep through her body at the sight before her.

The symbol of the Triforce had appeared on the back of both her and Zelda's hands. On Zelda, the lower-left triangle was glowing brighter than the other two; on Linkali, the lower-right piece was brightest.

"Wisdom," Lin whispered, eyeing Zelda's hand. Her gaze shifted to her own hand. "And Courage." She looked back at the old woman, who had swiftly written something on her paper.

_When pieces of the Triforce come together, they resonate with one another. When your hand felt odd when you came near me, that was the hum of the Goddesses' powers harmonizing with each other. In fact, the Triforce of Wisdom is why I have lived for so many years; it has kept me alive, because no other suitable bearer has ever come to light._

"No way," Linkali breathed, her blue eyes round with amazement. If she'd had any remaining doubts about what Zelda had told her, they were certainly gone by now. She stared at the mark on her hand, centering her gaze on the glowing triangle of Courage. A thought occurred to her, and she tore her eyes away from her hand and looked over at the former monarch. "If what you said before is true, and I've had the Triforce of Courage inside of me for my whole life, why haven't I ever noticed this?" She pointed to her glowing hand. The old woman re-lit the lantern by the table.

_Look at your hand again when you are home tonight,_ Zelda told her. _The mark will fade away as you distance yourself from me, because our pieces of the Triforce will no longer be resonating together._

"Is that why you've always come across to me as being such a melancholy, aloof person?" Linkali asked. "Because you were trying to keep your distance so that the Triforce of Courage wouldn't start to resonate?"

_Yes._ Zelda smiled. _I've learned that it is best if one who is chosen to bear your particular piece does not know what they hold until they are mature enough to handle its demands. To my thinking, you are old enough now to know what you have inside of you, which is why I began approaching you more frequently._

"And here I thought you just wanted to be friends," Lin joked. Zelda huffed a laugh.

_Well, that was also an aspect of it,_ she wrote. _You certainly are one of the more agreeable bearers._

"How did you know it was me, though?"

_The Triforce of Wisdom began to resonate within me when your mother was pregnant with you._

"But Bartal's mother was carrying him at the same time. How did you know it was me and not him?"

_It hummed much more strongly when I put my hands on your mother's belly. _Zelda shook her head. _I wanted to see you born, because somehow I knew that __you__ would be the true bearer—the one who was able to endure the trials of the Triforce of Courage. But I couldn't; our pieces would have shown if I drew too close. Everyone present would have known what you and I were, which would not have done either of us—or Hyrule, actually—any favors._

"That's another way to say 'Lin, don't tell anyone what we've talked about tonight', isn't it?"

_Precisely. See, Lin? You __can__ understand subtleties. You just prefer people to be blunt because it's easier to understand._

Linkali laughed aloud. "I guess that's true," she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. Zelda picked up the Master Sword and slid it slowly from its sheath, tipping the scabbard down so that the hiltless fragment tumbled out. She set the two pieces on the table and pressed them together. For an instant, the fracture line disappeared as the steel shards locked back into place, but the seam fell apart the second the old woman stopped applying pressure to them. She sighed and shook her head hopelessly.

_This will never do,_ she wrote, frowning irately.

"What does that mean for us?" Lin asked. Zelda smiled grimly.

_It means you've got a bit of legwork to do before you can take on Ganon,_ she replied. _You will never be able to defeat the Evil King if the Blade of Evil's Bane is not intact. The power of the gods cannot flow through a broken sword._

"How much and what kind of 'legwork'?" Linkali queried suspiciously, tugging her glove back on. "Remember, Zelda, I may have a part of the Hero's spirit, but I'm still a lazy teenager." Zelda scoffed.

_You are no such thing._

"If you say so," Lin breezed. "I mean, my father would certainly beg to differ with you on that point." Zelda laughed silently. "You know, if anyone but you were telling me these things, I wouldn't believe a word of it, and I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but…What do I have to do?"

At that instant, the clock in the front hall struck ten. Linkali tensed, her eyes widening. Had she really been here so long? She shivered to think of what would happen if her parents decided to see what their daughter had been doing in her room for the past two hours. Zelda seemed to sense this anxiety. _Tomorrow,_ she wrote quickly. _Come back at dawn, before the sun has risen too high. Don't worry about wakening me—I don't plan to sleep tonight. But come back at dawn, and I will tell you everything you need to know about the task facing you. Bring the sword, and an instrument. Do you play one?_

"Yes. I have a small flute."

_That will work. Don't forget._

Linkali started to get up, but Zelda stopped her. The old Hylian dropped the Master Sword's two pieces back into the scabbard and offered it to the girl. Lin took it with a nod, and strapped it back onto her belt. She hesitated, then pulled the woman into a tight hug before she ran out the door and darted through the darkened village without a backward glance.


	10. 9: Dreaming of Spirits

As it were, neither of Linkali's parents had given much thought to where their daughter was. When Lin went down to the kitchen to get a small snack, her father merely remarked that he had thought she had gone to bed. That lifted a considerable weight of worry from the youth's heart, and she retreated back up to her room with a little less tension in her stride. Her calm and confidence carried her over to her bed, where she lay down and propped herself up with a wad of blanket and pillow.

Once there, though, Linkali felt a more pressing concern descend upon her. She pulled the hiltless piece of the Master Sword out, leaving the hilted portion and scabbard beneath her bed, and studied the broken blade in the light of the lantern on her bedside table. She swept her fingers over the beveled foible and fuller, stroking the smooth, cold metal gently. The Master Sword did not look impressive, especially not now, when it was snapped in half. It looked dull and dead; Lin wondered if it had ever glowed with energy like the books said it had. At first, she had assumed that it was because it was lacking someone to wield it…but according to Aldez—according to _Zelda_—Linkali was that wielder.

"I don't doubt her," the girl muttered under her breath. "But why does it have to be _me_? What do _I_ have that makes me so special that I could survive with the Triforce of Courage inside of me?" She fixed her eyes fiercely on the sword piece in her hand, as if interrogating it. She received no answer, and realized with a tickle of foolishness that she had been half-expecting one. (She didn't know who she expected to _deliver_ the answer, but she had almost felt one coming.)

Linkali sighed and rested the chunk of steel in her lap. "Alde—Zelda said that a lot of other people have been chosen by Courage before me," she murmured distantly. She felt as if she were addressing the broken blade in her lap, and perhaps even the spirit of the Hero of Time. "But none of them survived for long…They couldn't handle it, which makes me wonder what they _felt_ that caused them to make the decisions that lost them their lives. I've never felt immortal—except maybe sometimes when I'm hillboarding—and I've never felt a call to act before. I've never wanted to save Hyrule; if I'd had a choice, I probably wouldn't have joined"—she thought the word _HyReCo_, rather than saying it aloud—"even if Bartal did. It's not that I'm content with King Ganon's reign…it's just that I don't see the point in fighting him. Everyone who's ever stood against him has been killed; just because the Triforce of Courage hasn't offed me yet doesn't mean _he_ can't."

She let out her breath in a short huff. "I probably wouldn't have believed…_Zelda_ if she hadn't shown me the mark on my hand." The girl studied her bare hand. She had removed her gloves for the night. There was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary about the back of her left hand; it did not have even the subtlest outline of the Triforce, and it looked identical to her right—well, except for the fact that it was the opposite hand. "I'd wondered about the strange feeling I got when I was around her…I can't imagine why I never thought to look and see what was making me itch like that. Maybe because it wasn't the time for me to know, or something like that." She sounded skeptical, for the idea that her thoughts would be impeded just because it 'wasn't the right time' struck her as strange and very unreal. **(1)**

Linkali shrugged and picked up the piece of the Master Sword again. "So, I'm the Incarnation of the Hero of Time and the bearer of the Triforce of Courage," she said dully. "Fan-damn-tastic. But what does that actually _mean_?" She fidgeted with the broken blade in her hands. "Does it mean I'm going to have to do everything he did? Travel around Hyrule and fight off monsters?" She frowned. "I don't like to admit it, but I almost want it to be that way. The Hero…he might have been a fool, but at least he was a pure-hearted fool, and he did have a lot of adventure in his life."

The word _adventure_ reminded her, for no apparent reason, of the evening when she and Ganga had gone out at dusk to find one of the goats. Her heart still throbbed excitedly in her chest when she thought of that night. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the blurred, melting colors as the dying sun sent its final rays of light to streak the night with fire. It was an experience that she was fairly sure no one else in Kokoria Village shared with her, and it had given her a hunger for the world outside the shelter of the village. Of course, nobody would want to see it with her—they were all too afraid of what happened outside the village gates after dark.

What_ happens, though?_ Linkali found herself wondering. _They all say what they've been told, but has anyone in Hyrule actually been out on the field at night? _A burn began in her belly, and her heart picked up speed. Lin started to ponder just what exactly went on outside of villages after sunset. She smirked to herself. She had the Triforce of Courage; why shouldn't that help her to survive when she was out on Hyrule Field after dark, alone, with nobody but the shadows and the rustles, in the darkness, where she couldn't see anything coming, and if she heard something approach she could be sure that it wouldn't be anything friendly because no one would be outside the village after dark, so she would be alone and by herself, and there would only be darkness and night around her, unless a monster came which would be bad because she would be alone and she wouldn't be able to see it because it would be dark, and…

Linkali found her high spirits start to plummet as reason berated her reckless thinking, and wondered if this was what Zelda had meant. Lin might be the bearer of the Triforce of Courage, and it might have some influence over her…but for some reason her common sense could prevail over the Goddess-given power. What good would it do her, though, if she could override the Courage within her? If she could push it aside, could she really be called courageous?

Sighing, the teen began toying with the piece of sword again. Her long fingers danced over the countless chips and nicks along the edge of the blade. It looked dull—not just lusterless, but lacking any kind of sharp edge to it—and the sight of it did not lift Linkali's hopes. Zelda had said that Ganon would not fall to a broken sword; Lin was starting to think that the Master Sword needed to be completely reforged if it was going to stand a chance against _any_thing, much less the King of Evil. "There isn't a smith in Hyrule who would go near this blade, though," Linkali muttered darkly. "Either they'd be terrified of retribution if King Ganon found out about it, or they wouldn't want to contaminate their forge with the metal from such a shameful sword."

Linkali set three of the fingers on her right hand on the chipped edge of the sword. She laughed. "There are so many nicks and chips taken out of this blade," she said softly, "it's almost like someone tried to make a model of Hyrule's topography. I could explore the whole land with my fingers right here, and never have to leave the safety of the village!" And with a laugh, she swept her fingertips down the edge of the blade, hissing and swearing as an uncommonly sharp edge sliced through her skin partway down the length of the sword.

"Lin? Are you asleep?"

Linkali acted quickly, dropping the broken piece of sword behind her bed just before Talina entered the room. The younger Hylian's eyes stretched wide with surprise. "Lin—you're bleeding!" she gasped, pointing at her sister's fingers. Lin, who hadn't really felt much pain from the injury after the initial cut, looked down with mild surprise.

"So I am," she said.

"What _happened_?"

"Get me a roll of gauze without letting Mom or Dad see," Lin replied calmly. Tali darted off without another word, hurrying down the stairs to fetch the bandages. She returned shortly after and handed the gauze over to her sister. Linkali began wrapping the injured fingers tightly to slow the bleeding, while Talina waited on edge.

"So? What did you do?" she burst out as the older girl was wrapping the last finger.

"You know how people sometimes say that someone is 'so sharp they're going to cut themselves one of these days'?" Linkali asked. Tali nodded, looking a little confused. "Well, as it were, that saying is based on fact. I've just cut myself with my own rapier wit." Lin almost laughed, but she realized that unless she revealed the sword beneath her bed, her sister wouldn't understand the joke. She let out her breath quietly. "Actually, I was…playing with a knife—which is stupid and not something you should do."

"I don't want to end up bleeding through several layers of gauze," Tali responded, pointing to Lin's hand. "So I think I'll avoid messing around with sharp objects." Linkali studied her hand, which still did not hurt, and realized that Tali was right; the bandages were steadily blushing crimson. "Are you going to be all right, Lin? Should I get Mom?"

"No." Halvara would never be content to simply _hear_ that her daughter had cut herself while playing with a knife; she would want to _see_ the knife for herself. "I'll be fine, Tali. Don't worry—you know I'm a quick healer. It's lucky that you came in when you did, though. Why _were_ you poking around in my room, anyway?"

"Dad thought you had already gone to sleep, but it's still pretty early," Talina answered. "I wanted to check and make sure you weren't sick or anything."

"Not sick, just stupid." Lin leaned forward and kissed her sister's forehead. "Thanks for coming in and making sure I was all right, Tali. It's always nice to know that someone cares about you."

"You're my big sister. Of course I care about you." Talina pushed herself up and started towards the door; Linkali was grateful that her sister, like every other Hylian nowadays, asked questions sparingly and did not like to pry. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Lin was about to answer to the negative, when the conversation she'd been having with herself before Tali's entrance came back to her. She frowned thoughtfully, glancing to the side. "Actually, yes," she said. "Tell me something, Tal: Am I…courageous?" She said the word somewhat hesitantly, and a little skeptically; it sounded like such an old-fashioned word to her ears.

Talina stopped and turned, leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms over her chest. She studied Linkali for a few minutes, her dark brown eyes sweeping over her sister with a mock critical glint in them. Then, she laughed. "Well, yeah," she replied. Lin was startled by how dead certain the girl sounded. "Lin, you're not afraid of doing anything for anyone. You go hillboarding with Bartal all the time—I could never do that." The older Hylian smothered a satisfied smirk. "You spend all that time with Aldez—I could never do that either. In fact, I don't really think anyone in Kokoria but _you_ would ever be able to do those things. You always stand up for what you think is right, even when nobody else does." She paused. "Are you asking me if you're courageous, as in Courage, as in Farore, Goddess of? Let me say this: If I had to compare you to a Goddess, I'd pick the Goddess of Awesome…but there isn't one of those, so Courage is the next best fit."

Linkali blinked in silence at the young Hylian standing in front of her. Tali raised an eyebrow. "Anything else you need?" she asked.

"No," Lin replied. "No…Thanks, Tali." Tali nodded and left, closing the door behind her. Linkali sat where she was for a few minutes longer, then slowly pushed herself up and returned to her bed. Once there, she cleaned the thin scrim of blood from the sword piece she had dropped beneath her bed and returned to staring at it. "So Talina thinks I _am_," she whispered, shaking her head. "Well, if there's anyone whose judgment I trust, it's hers."

Sitting there, Linkali remembered the promise she had made to Zelda earlier that night: that she would be back at the old woman's house at dawn tomorrow. If she wanted to get any sleep, she should probably get it now. Lin had been blessed with an unusually accurate body clock. She could tell herself to sleep for an hour, and would awaken on her own within fifteen minutes of that time. She reasoned that now, at eleven-thirty, it would be about five hours until the eastern sky turned gray. (Zelda had stressed to be there before it grew too light.)

While she laid out her clothes for the next morning, Lin wrote her parents a quick note, which she planned to leave on the kitchen table before she headed out. _Mom, Dad,_ it read. _I left earlier this morning to be with Aldez. _(The first time she tried to write the note, she accidentally wound up writing "Zelda", and had been forced to scrap it.) _I'll probably be back some time later today. Don't worry; I'll be perfectly fine. Love, Lin._ It was short and simple, without getting too sentimental; Linkali knew her parents would not think anything was amiss.

She found the flute she had told Zelda about beforehand, and was pleased to see that it looked much the same as when she'd last seen it four years ago. She'd called it a flute, although most people would have referred to it as an ocarina. It was a simple, relatively egg-shaped instrument with a mouthpiece on the longer side of it, as well as two loops on the ends through which a necklace cord was strung. Linkali put it to her lips and blew into it, covering and uncovering the holes deftly. The sounds that issued forth were low, haunting, and seemed to echo over themselves hollowly. Lin smiled as she added it to the pile of things to take with her. She didn't know why Zelda wanted her to bring an instrument, but she was sure the old woman would explain everything to her tomorrow.

Having assembled everything Zelda had asked her to bring, as well as a few of the things she thought it was important to take just in case (such as the lock-picking kit Bartal had given her, a pack of matches, and a small folding knife), the Hylian girl hid the pile behind the closed doors of her wardrobe and flopped down on her bed to sleep. Since rest had not been easy to come by the past two nights, she was already tired, and fell asleep readily despite her excitement over her upcoming visit with her elder friend.

* * *

"Hello?"

Linkali listened to the fading echoes of her voice as they slowly died from the hot, still air. She narrowed her eyes against the glare of the blazing, naked sun overhead and lifted a hand to further shield them. She was unused to being anywhere where the sunlight was so bright and direct, or where the land was so hot; she wasn't entirely sure she liked it.

The Hylian youth had never in all her life seen a place like the one she was in now. She was standing in the middle of a field of grass with nodding seedheads that rose up higher than her own. She could not see over or through the stems, which were green streaked with yellow-gold and rich brown. From time to time, a breeze—not cool like she was used to, but warm and dry—would sweep the field, and the grass would sway and ripple fluidly as if it were dancing in the eerie silence. (The silence, she was somewhat used to, for Hyrule Field could be very quiet—but the quietude here was more powerful, more absolute, more unsettling.) Linkali did not know of any places in Hyrule where the grass grew taller than she stood, and she had never seen a day where the blue sky was totally cleared of clouds. From this, coupled with the knowledge that she did not remember ever leaving her bed, she realized that she was dreaming.

Lin was startled by the revelation. She rarely dreamed, unlike her sister, who spent every night in a rich and fantastical world where she had many exciting adventures. The young woman remembered having perhaps three complete dreams in her lifetime thus far, and none of them made any sense to her. In the rare even that she _did_ dream, Linkali would only remember seeing a handful of different, seemingly random objects highlighted by some strange, unseen light source; she never really paid much attention to them, anyway. **(2)** Aside from those few experiences, though, she did not dream. Talina had once asked her older sister if Lin dreamed in color or not, and the girl had been unable to answer. (Tali, apparently, dreamed in vivid, brilliant color that made the waking world horribly drab by comparison.)

"Well," Linkali murmured to herself, unsettled at how even that soft tone of voice seemed to echo out over the strange landscape, "I guess I dream in color." She stroked the hue-streaked stem of one of the stalks of grass near her; it felt strangely cool and sleek beneath her fingers, and when she squeezed it tightly in a pincer grasp, it buckled like any normal stalk of grass would. _But why would I dream about a place like this?_

Linkali tipped back her chin to gaze up at the vaulting, empty, bleached-blue sky above her, squinting in the sharp, almost painful glare of the bright sunlight. She couldn't recall any of her precious few dreams ever feeling so…real. The sun overhead was shining so brightly that it _hurt_ to turn her eyes towards; the heat that baked the prairie was enough that Lin could feel herself beginning to sweat. She shook her head in confusion and wonder. "Hello?" she called out again, shivering a little at how loudly her voice seemed to ring out in the dead, quiet air. "Is anyone else there?" _Stupid, it's a dream. You're aware that it's a dream—you can do anything you want. If you want people here, then make them appear. In fact, why not just change the whole landscape? It's too hot here, anyway._

The girl closed her eyes and tried to imagine a cooler, less bright place. Her mind went first to the small forest outside Kokoria Village; she tried to recall as much about it as she could, in order to paint a more accurate picture. She thought about the slick, dark-barked trees with their hanging beards of gray-green moss, and the yellow toadstools that sprouted around their roots, and the cups of white fungus that clung to their trunks. She envisioned the thin mist that wreathed the spindly, twisting branches after the rain fell, and the cool moss that lined the ground and glistened with beads of moisture. When she opened her eyes, though, the endless field of high grass had not transformed, and the searing sunlight was just as intense as before. Linkali bit her lower lip. What kind of dream was this, that she couldn't change the landscape of it, even when she was aware that she was dreaming? A little afraid of what that might mean, the girl began to walk through the grass, brushing the stalks out of her way and stepping between them.

Up above, in the blinding blue sky, Linkali heard the shrill, distant cry of a hunting hawk. She froze, glancing around for the source of the thin sound, which had had a distinctly different character than any of the hawk-screams she had heard in the waking world. Nothing, no darts of shadow; it was as if the bird only existed when it was making noise. Lin shuddered uncomfortably. She couldn't shake the feeling that unless she figured something out, she was going to be trapped in this dreamscape, unable to waken and return to her life. So she wandered aimlessly, occasionally calling out for someone to speak to her. Her only answers were the rustling of the grass as she parted in before her, and the sporadic calling of the unseen hawk, and—every now and then—the snorting and pawing of an impatient horse. (The horse, like the bird, was never seen, only heard.)

After what she _knew_ had to be hours of walking, Linkali spread apart the high grass and spotted the end of the prairie. Her heart leapt in her chest hopefully. At the edge of the field of grass stood an open clearing, where the ground was covered in scrubby grass that barely reached the top of her boots. The grass there was pure yellow, and massive, smooth rocks were scattered about the area like strange gray fungus. But that was not what had excited Lin. There was someone standing in the middle of the small clearing! She licked her dry lips and picked up the pace, dashing to the stranger's side.

"Excuse me," she said when she reached them, holding up her hand in greeting. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The stranger turned slowly to face her. Linkali judged from their build that they were a grown man, though it was hard to be perfectly certain, for much of his body was hidden. The man wore a long green cap on his head, as well as a gold-colored headguard with strange decorative pieces coming off the sides that gave the appearance of a stylized bird's wing in flight **(3)**; a visor covered his face. Lin could see that he wore a green tunic, with a white undershirt and leggings and a chainmail tunic beneath, though he also had on several pieces of light body armor: Two forest-green painted shoulder guards that connected to a breastplate of the same color, and two green hip-plates that connected with a guard in the front. There was little decoration on the armor, save for the gold-toned edging; though it glowed brightly in the sunlight, Linkali could see that there were more than a few dings in the plates. The man wore thick leather gauntlets and boots, both of which had gleaming gold plating on them, and had a large sword and shield strapped to his back.

"You are in a distant place," the man told her. Lin shivered at the sound of his rich voice. It was deep, but not ridiculously so; he sounded like he was in his mid-thirties. But what had caused her to shiver was not the timbre of his voice, but the eerie sensation of familiarity it brought her. "I am glad you've made it to my side, Linkali."

The Hylian girl balked, wondering how exactly it was that he knew her name. _It's a dream,_ she told herself after a few seconds, although that sentence was quickly starting to lose meaning when applied to the strange world she was in. _Of course he knows my name; he's part of the dream. I…I guess I could say that I created him._ "I…I prefer 'Lin'," she pointed out, pondering the reason why, if he was the product of her own mind, he didn't already know that. The armored man nodded.

"Lin…I will remember that," he murmured, nodding once. "Will you come with me, Lin?"

"Sure," Lin replied, figuring that it was better to be wandering with someone else than totally alone. (Especially if that 'someone else' had a sword like the one currently strapped to the man's back; it looked big enough to be a two-handed weapon.) "Look, this is probably going to sound really stupid, but…Do you know how to get out of here?"

The man turned to look at her. He stood perhaps a head higher than she did—taller than Bartal, but not quite as tall as Lin's father. "Yes," he said calmly. Linkali found that there was so much peace, so much gentle certainty, in his voice, that she quite forgot her anxiety about being trapped in the world of her dreams. He rested a hand on the teen's shoulder. "Perhaps you have noticed already, but this dream is not of the normal sort."

"I couldn't change anything," Lin said, spreading her hands in confusion as she walked beside the man. "And I can't wake up from it."

"When the dream has served its purpose, you will enter a sleep from which you may then awaken," she heard the armored man say comfortingly. He indicated the forest that stood ahead of them, which Linkali hadn't even seen before; in fact, she was fairly sure it hadn't even existed until just now. She wondered if this person, whoever he was, was somehow in control of _her_ dream. "Come, we will speak in here, where it is cooler and darker."

The man was right; the woods _were_ much more pleasant than the sunny plains. There was no glaring sunlight here. The thick growth of the forest seemed to have filtered out much of the harshness of the golden light, and the warm luminance around the two wanderers seemed to glow emerald green. The air was cool and somewhat moist, and was heavy with the rich scents of decomposing plant life and something fresh—something with which Lin was unfamiliar: green, growing leaves in the warm sunlight. The trees of the forest were massive, great-grandfathers of trees, with girths so wide that the youth knew that if she and the armored man were to stand on opposite sides and embrace the trunk, their fingers would not meet on the sides. Warblers and songbirds trilled their songs unseen, and invisible crickets chirred in the hedgerows; their voices, though pleasant, sounded as distant and strange as the crying hawk on the prairie had.

Linkali strode beside the man through the forest, her gaze shifting up and down and all around. She had never seen a place like _this_ either, and she found that she rather liked it. Forests in Hyrule were either twisted and unwelcoming or dark and brooding. These woods, though, were bright and warm, and seemed to pulse with life itself. As the two of them walked along the dark, loamy floor, Lin realized that the trees were starting to thin out, becoming more widely spaced. The man beside her took a few strides ahead and gently pulled aside the branches of a leaning tree, revealing a gap in the forest. He motioned for the girl to walk ahead, holding the leafy limbs aside like a gentleman holding a door. Linkali stepped through and gasped in wonder.

The forest opened up to a wide clearing whose ground was sloped and peaked smoothly. The floor of it was covered in soft, green grass, dotted with sporadic patches of colorful wildflowers and clusters of small, egg-shaped, pale gray stones. A few large rocks, their uneven faces worn partially smooth but still spattered with chinks, stood around the far end of the clearing. Golden sunlight, warm and much less intense than on the plains, bathed the meadow and made it glow; it painted yellow the trunks of the trees that ringed the area. The man coming up behind Linkali rested his hand on her shoulder. "Here is where I would speak with you," he said. "That is, if you enjoy this place."

"Y-yes," Lin stammered, a little startled by the sound of his voice. She'd been so taken aback by the vividness of the area that she'd quite forgotten he was there. She heard a soft chuckle from under his visor.

"Then let us make our way to those stones, and we will sit there."

The Hylian youth followed the armored man like an affectionate puppy. Already, she was starting to like him; he seemed to be a very patient and indulgent person, almost like Zelda. She sat down on the sun-warmed surface of one of the rectangular stones that had fallen on its side; the man settled down across from her, unclipping his sword and shield and setting them on the ground at his feet. A contented sigh hissed out from behind his visor. "It is a wonderful place, isn't it?" he asked. "I do love it here."

"I do, too," Linkali murmured. The man nodded his approval.

"Now, Lin, I would like to speak to you," he said. Lin motioned with her open hands that he was free to do so. He nodded. "The path that lies before you is a difficult one, and one that not many in your land can face. Your quest is not an easy one, but it is by no means beyond your power to complete. You have within you what is needed to undertake the challenge and succeed. You have great courage—Courage like a Goddess—and the spirit of a Hero within you."

"How do you know about that?" the girl interrupted, and promptly clapped her own hand over her mouth. She felt heat rise shamefully in her face at how rudely she'd cut in. The man did not seem ruffled at all by her sudden speech.

"I can sense these things about you," he replied calmly and evenly, leaning back on his hands as he spoke. "You have a great destiny before you, and though the battle will be difficult, you will triumph in the end if you try." He shifted his weight forward and sat up straight again. "Have courage, and do not fear the way that lies ahead. You can do whatever you set your mind and heart to doing." He laughed once, softly, and Lin imagined him smiling under his faceguard. "After all…you can always do better than the Hero of Time did. Am I right?"

"Yes, I guess so," Linkali answered. She'd felt a little uncomfortable when he'd first mentioned the Hero, but it seems that he was not comparing her to him, but rather contrasting them. "Say, who are you, anyway? What's your name, if you don't mind me asking?"

The armored man shrugged lightly. "My name is of little importance," he told her. "I am but a wandering spirit who roams the dreams of those who have been chosen by the Triforce of Courage. And you are, to date, the most capable-looking bearer I have ever laid eyes on." Lin grinned at the praise. "I am a gentle guide, a helpful voice; I am the Warrior's Spirit, and I have said all that must be said tonight." He rose to his feet and began strapping his sword across his back once more. When all of his possessions were in order, he took a few steps towards Linkali, who had also left her seat atop the stone, and gripped her hand in both of his. "Remember what I have told you, Lin; we shall meet again another night."

No sooner had he said those words of farewell than did the forest disappear, replaced by a gentle blackness. The Spirit released Linkali's hand, and the young woman felt herself falling back into the darkness. She was not afraid, though; she knew that sleep was wrapping its quiet arms around her, and she snuggled down comfortably into its dark embrace.

**(1) I feel the same way. But I write it anyway.**

**(2) I used to dream like this, but for some reason, as I've gotten older, I've started to dream more completely and more like Tali. I have no idea why that would be.**

**(3) Think of the bird on the Hylian Shield—those kind of bird wings. There's a reason why I didn't expressly describe them with those words in the story, which you'll find out soon enough.**


	11. 10: The Journey Begins

The sleeping world was lit in shades of blue and gray when Linkali crept out of her home to see Zelda. Kokoria Village was silent, save for the scattered _gzzr_ of crickets hidden in the grass. The Hylian youth dropped down from the side of her house, holding one hand against the Master Sword to keep it from rattling too loudly, though she highly doubted anyone nearby enough to hear it was awake. (It was barely four in the morning, anyway, and the air was too cold for anyone to have a window open.) Her boots sent up small sprays of dew when they hit the grass. Lin glanced around furtively, and after ascertaining that no one was watching her from their window or walking towards her, she began creeping across the village like a stalking cat. The whole time she walked, she glanced at the sleeping, shuttered houses, always wary of being seen; if people were watching her, they did not speak out.

Zelda, it seemed, _was_ watching Lin, for the old woman opened the door to her home before the girl could even raise a fist to knock. Linkali reminded herself that Zelda had said she wouldn't be sleeping, and stepped inside with a quiet nod. She did not need to be directed into the kitchen; she'd spent so much time there, she wouldn't have known what to do if the elder had wanted to speak somewhere else. As she entered the room, the girl saw a few curious items resting on the table: a small golden harp, a leather pouch, a strange-looking weapon that had what looked like an arrowhead attached to it, and a canvas pack. More sheets of paper also lay there, and Lin noticed that something had already been written on one of them and turned so that she could read it: _Have you eaten yet?_

"Yes," she replied as Zelda came into the kitchen behind her. She had made herself a quick breakfast when she had left the note for her parents to find. The old Hylian nodded and settled down in her chair. Linkali pulled her own chair around so that it was beside Zelda's and, after unstrapping her sword and laying it on the table, sat down.

_Yesterday, I wanted to tell you about the task that lies before you,_ Zelda wrote. _But time crept up on us, and I was unable to do so. Today, though, there is time._

Linkali nodded. "I believe it had something to do with finding a way to repair the Master Sword," she said. "Because you told me that Ganon would never fall to a broken blade."

_That is correct. _Zelda smiled. _And we are fortunate to have the means to repair it, though it may not be entirely easy. Do you recall reading in the story of the Hero about the awakening of the six Sages?_

"Yes," Linkali replied. "They gave him medallions that added their power to his, and aided him in getting into Ganon's tower to rescue—ah, you." She glanced away, somewhat embarrassed. She felt the buzz of warmth as Zelda rested her hand comfortingly overtop of Lin's. The girl looked back at the paper.

_The power of the Sages amplified the power of the Master Sword,_ Zelda wrote. _The plan that was originally laid out was that after the Hero defeated Ganon—not killing him, because with the Triforce of Power, that is essentially impossible—the Sages would use their power to bind Ganon away forever. However, as I'm sure you know…_

"Right," Lin murmured, nodding to herself. That sealing-away had never happened, because Ganon had won that fight.

_After the end of the battle, the Sages fled,_ Zelda told her. _Though they had been "awakened", there was really no way to "put them back to sleep", if you catch my meaning. Instead, they chose to seal away their powers. Each of them returned to the way they were before Link had broken the curses on their Temples and awoken them. _

Zelda took a new sheet of paper. _You will need their help if you want to do anything against Ganon. The Sages' power was the only thing that could strengthen the Master Sword, and now it is the only thing that can repair it. Unfortunately, when they sealed their power away, they sealed their memories as well; they have forgotten that they were ever anything more than what they were born as._

"Is there any way for me to remind them of their title as Sage?" Lin asked. "There has to be—otherwise, you wouldn't have told me all of this."

_You are correct—there is a way,_ Zelda wrote. _When the Sages locked their power away, they made sure to leave a key for the next heir of the Master Sword to use to free them. The key is this: It is the one piece of their power that they could not seal away, for it was no longer in their possession._

"The Medallions," Linkali breathed. Zelda nodded. She picked up the leather bag and opened it, then poured its clinking contents into her hand. Linkali leaned forward with interest, but Zelda curled her palm around the colorful objects before the girl could get a good look at them.

_Lin, your task is to break the seals of the six Sages. You must find them and return their medallions; only then will they remember who they once were, and be able to aid you. The Medallions are a piece of their power. When it is returned to them, they will regain their abilities and memories. Granted, it might be a bit more difficult than it sounds…_

"Meaning?"

_Hyrule has been living under a dark cloud for so long that many things about the land have changed,_ Zelda replied. _Including some of its peoples. The Sages, because they did not remember being anything other than a humble member of their birth race, have changed with them. You may find that some of them would rather attack you than help you on your quest, which is why you must have courage._ And with that, she held out her fisted hand, and gently deposited the six medallions into Linkali's waiting palm.

The Hylian youth turned them over in awe, tracing the raised symbols on the front and back of each. She could feel the ancient power thrumming through the small objects—all six of which could fit comfortably in the palm and cupped fingers of one hand. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Linkali knew at that moment that there was no turning back now. She could dislike her fate all she wanted, but she could not change it. From the instant the Medallions had touched her skin, she had signed the deal in blood and sold her destiny to the Goddesses. As damning as it might have sounded, though, Lin found that she didn't entirely mind it. She found herself remembering the words of the Warrior's Spirit—that she could face any challenge set before her.

Besides, all six of the Sages couldn't possibly live in Kokoria Village.

_Oh, damn,_ Linkali thought with a grin. _Looks like I'll just have to leave the village and face the world. It might be a while before I have the chance to see another sunset from inside the safety of Kokoria's walls._

Zelda was smiling also, as if she had sensed the young woman's thoughts. The two Hylians sat in the silent kitchen for a few minutes longer. It was clear that both of them could feel the throbbing hums of the ancient power within the Medallions, and that both of them took great strength from it. It buzzed through their bones and beat with their hearts, like a thunderstorm or a kitten's purr. Finally, Zelda picked up her quill and began to write.

_Keep those Medallions with you at all times,_ she ordered in indelible black ink. Linkali nodded. _If you lose one of them, it could very well be the loss of hope for Hyrule. But I trust you; you are a responsible young woman._ Lin nodded again, though with a little less certainty this time. _Now, there are a few other things I must give you._ The former monarch reached for the unfamiliar weapon Lin had noticed earlier. She set it on the table between them. _This weapon, the Hookshot, was once used by the Hero himself._

"Where did you get it?" Lin asked curiously.

_The ghost of the Kakariko gravekeeper, Dampé, guided me to it,_ Zelda answered. _I was confused at first, because the Hero had had the Hookshot on his person when he died._ The old woman shook her head. _I am not exactly sure who could have taken it back, though._

"What do you mean?"

_In each of the Temples of Hyrule rests a legendary weapon or tool. When the Sages fled the battle, they took those items back with them._ She shrugged. _The Iron Boots, the Megaton Hammer, the Mirror Shield…they were returned to their Temples to wait for the Hero's Incarnation to reclaim them. But the Hookshot was not found in any Temple; it was won from Dampé's race._ She shook her head. _I'm sure it does not matter. The fact is, Lin: The Hookshot is yours now. Hopefully, you will be able to put it to good use._

Linkali returned the Medallions to their pouch and attached it to her belt. She then reached for the Hookshot and weighed it in her hands. It looked deceptively simple, a spring-loaded hook on a chain, but Lin was suspicious if there was more to it than that. She was tempted to try it out, but figured that now was not the best time for that. Zelda had a lot of things in her house that looked like they could be easily broken, and there was always the risk that the Hookshot would fire with more force that it looked capable of mustering. (There were more than a few spots of rust on the chain, and the leather grip was peeling away in some places.)

"Thank you," she said, setting her new weapon down on the table. She wasn't entirely sure how much good it would do against some of the monsters that roamed Hyrule, but she was going to find out soon enough. (At any rate, the point of the hook _did_ look rather sharp.) **(1)**

_There is yet another thing,_ Zelda wrote. _I asked you to bring an instrument—did you?_

"Yes." Linkali reached down the front of her mantle and pulled out her ocarina flute. Zelda eyed it with approval, nodding. "A musical instrument isn't the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of daring quests, but you seem to know more about them than I do."

_There are two songs that I need to teach you. I think they will be very useful to you on your quest. Do you read music?_ Linkali shook her head. _Can you follow along when a song is played?_ The girl nodded. _Good. I will play the songs for you, and I want you to play them back to me._ The mute elder reached for the small harp Lin had seen when she'd first entered the kitchen. She lifted it into the crook of her left arm, studied it for a moment, then turned her eyes back to Lin. Moving her hand across the strings like a bird over water, Zelda plucked out three notes twice. Linkali realized that it was the same song the old woman had whistled down in the cellar to open the door. She listened to the notes a few times before nodding and lifting her flute to her mouth to play. The song was simple and the notes were easy for Lin to find on her own instrument. She and Zelda played the song several times in a soft duet, until the woman lowered her harp.

_That was the song of the Royal Family,_ she explained. Linkali noticed that her hand was trembling slightly. _My nanny, Impa, used to play that song for me when I was younger to help me sleep, so much so that she and my father sometimes referred to it as "Zelda's Lullaby." If you ever see the crest of the Royal Family, play this song._

"What does the crest look like?" Lin queried. Zelda paused.

_Sometimes, it is merely the Triforce, which you are already familiar with,_ she replied. _But other times, the royal eagle may be included below it, like this._ And she drew a rough sketch of a bird with spread wings and the Triforce in place of its head. Lin leaned forward, her finger hovering above the bird's wings.

"Those rectangles," she murmured. "I've seen those before…" She covered much of the bird up, leaving only the top four rectangles of its wings. "That! That's the design on Bartal's pauldron!" _And those wings look like the Spirit's headguard,_ she added to herself.

Zelda nodded. _Yes. Bartal can trace his family back to the Knights of Hyrule who served the Royal Family,_ she replied. Lin nearly burst out laughing. Imagine—Bartal, a knight! She brought herself back to the present as Zelda tapped her hand lightly with the quill. _Are you ready for the second song?_ The girl nodded. _This is the Song of Time—the melody that opened the path to the Master Sword. _

The Song of Time was much more difficult than the previous song Linkali had had to learn. It had many more notes to it, and seemed to double over itself endlessly. Zelda worked with her patiently, often playing the same note several times until the girl was able to find it on her ocarina, and breaking the song down into smaller pieces that the two Hylians would play together over and over. It took a few minutes for Lin to finally grasp the intricate melody, and it was a while longer before she could successfully play if back without stumbling over the notes. Zelda seemed satisfied.

_I only ask that you be careful about where and when you practice these songs,_ she wrote, _as they may attract unwanted attention. _Linkali nodded obediently. Zelda indicated the pack. Taking a new sheet of paper, she added, _I found this in the cellar when I was looking for all of the other things I've given you thus far. Take it—it's yours now._ She pointed to the only other object on the table besides the Master Sword.

The Hylian girl picked up the canvas knapsack and opened it curiously. It opened at the top, with a flap that fastened to a button. It was small enough that it would sit high on her back and not impede her movements; a single strap, designed to go across the wearer's chest, ran diagonally over the front of it. There was also a wrapped package inside of it, and Lin realized that it contained food. She looked over at Zelda curiously.

_The food is a new addition, rest assured,_ the old woman had written. Linkali nodded, a little relieved. _I think it would be best if you left soon._

"Soon? You mean…_today_, soon?"

_Yes. I recommend leaving before the rest of the village is awake. You'll have a much easier time getting out and going where you need to go if no one sees you._ Zelda smiled. _I will speak—or rather, write—to your parents and tell them that you are helping me around the house today. No one should question that._

"I left them a note saying I was going to be over here," Linkali told her. "I didn't say _what_ I was going to be doing…but I also didn't really specify _when_ I would be back. I guess that will work, won't it?" Zelda nodded.

_It should, if luck is on our side,_ she inscribed. _Now, Lin, would you let me see the Medallions for just a moment?_ Linkali obediently handed over the small pouch. Zelda emptied the Medallions onto the table with care and began sorting through them. She picked up one and handed it to Lin. It was emerald green, with four curved lines in a raised design on its front. _That is the Forest Medallion. I recommend you try to break the seal of the Forest Sage first. She would be the closest to our village. The forest where she was known to reside is just east of Kokoria._

"The Kirikiri Forest?" Linkali asked. Zelda nodded, although there was some reluctance to it. Lin wasn't sure what it meant. "They say that people who enter those woods never return, though. Are you sure it's safe?"

_You will be fine. I would not ask you to do something if I thought you could not do it._

"All right." The youth scooped up the Medallions and placed them back in the bag. She stood up and strapped the Master Sword back onto her belt behind her. (She wasn't sure _why_, but somehow she felt that it was important for her to bring it, even though it wouldn't do her any good.) After a brief hesitation, she decided to wear the Hookshot on the right side of her belt; it would counterbalance the Master Sword, the bulk weight of which was on her left hip, and be easy for her to grasp if she needed it. Zelda helped her pull on the pack.

_You look ready for anything,_ the old woman wrote.

"I don't really _feel_ that way," Linkali admitted. "But if you really believe that I can do this, Zelda, then I'll give it my best shot." She glanced out the window, where the blues of the sleepy village had faded to gray. The sun still had not risen, but some villagers awakened earlier than others. Lin pulled Zelda into a swift hug and made her way towards the door. Before she left, the old woman pressed the backs of their left hands together, and the resulting thrill of warmth pumped the girl full of energy. She drew a deep breath and crept silently out of the village.

At the gates of Kokoria Village, she stopped and took one long look at her home. She wondered briefly if she actually _would_ see it again. It worried her a little, but she knew that Zelda was counting on her to complete this task and her desire to succeed outweighed her anxiety. Besides, the old woman had told her she had nothing to fear. Though she did not know exactly how she would find the Sage of Forest, Linkali figured she would find a way. She turned back around and strode fearlessly onto the open expanse of Hyrule Field.

* * *

The Kirikiri Forest was a place Lin had often wondered about, but had never had a reason—or the nerve—to visit. She had heard all of the usual rumors: The bushes were alive and would attack those who drew too near—and the flowers would do the same. The woods were impossible to navigate, and those who tried would wander them until their body rotted away and they became a Stalfos. The Kirikiri who lived there could never leave the forest, lest they die, and were always eager to make friends from the Outside. (Though that last one did not instill fear in Linkali's heart, it _was_ one of the rumors she had heard.)

The young Hylian stepped through the hollow-log tunnel after crossing over a small rope bridge, and stood for a few moments with her hands on her hips. She had heard stories of the Kirikiri village, and was intrigued by how accurate they had actually been. Homes carved into the trunks of mighty trees—just how tall they might have been, Linkali could only guess—dotted the wide clearing. The grass was short, and many footpaths dotted the ground. There were clumps of taller grass and rocks, which struck Lin as being the perfect places for the mouse-children to hide and scurry about in. She wondered briefly if she would have the chance to see one of them; she'd heard they were rather charming with their soft little ears and their short tails.

"If I were a Temple," the girl muttered as she walked through the empty village (she figured the Kirikiri were hiding from the tall stranger in their midst), "where would I be?" Lin reasoned that the best place to find the Sage of Forest was in a Temple, though she didn't really know where to start looking for one. She frowned thoughtfully, tapping her lower lip and humming under her breath. To the left, she spotted what looked like the entrance to something important, high on a ridgetop. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to check up there. Temples are big. How hard could it be to find one?"

She wasn't entirely comfortable with just wandering about in the forest, since that apparently led to one's becoming a bone-warrior, but the encouraging words of both Zelda and the Hero's Spirit rang in her ears. Linkali hoisted herself up onto the first ridge, and from there began to climb up the vines on the side of the second. She heard a rustling squeak and jerked her head down just in time to see a flash of green followed by a thin streak of pink dart into the nearby treehouse. She grinned, pausing in her climb for a moment. "Little Kirikiri," she sang softly. "Don't be afraid of me."

The girl waited for a response, or for the mouse-child to reappear, but several minutes passed and nothing happened. She frowned thoughtfully. The Kirikiri spoke Hylian. They spoke it badly, she'd been told, but they could speak and understand. _It's probably just shy, or afraid of seeing someone new in its home,_ she thought, and continued her climb.

* * *

"Aiee! No, stop!"

Linkali froze, her ears stiffening to catch the echoes of the shocked cry that had broken out. The sound bounced around the humid, warm air, making it almost impossible for the teen to tell just where it had its origins. She bit her lower lip. The voice had sounded female, but it was higher-pitched than any Hylian woman Lin had ever heard speak. Hylian or not, whoever they were, they seemed to be in trouble. She detached the Hookshot from her belt and held it at the ready. A couple of Stalchilds on the journey here had given her an excuse to figure out its mechanisms, and even provided some target practice. If the woman screamed again, the girl was ready to find her.

Just her luck: She heard a queer spitting sound, followed by another sharp exclamation of pain. "Stop! Leave me alone!"

Linkali twisted the handle-grip of the Hookshot to arm the chain and darted through the tunnel on her right. Her heart was beating hard in her chest with both excitement and worry, and the humid air in the woods was thick and hard to breathe. (Frankly, Lin didn't understand how there could be such a climate shift in such a short distance; the Kirikiri Forest seemed to be able to defy logic, which was a strike against it in her book.) Her choice of tunnel had led her to another piece of the forest. She could see a short fence separating her from a lower piece of ground, and a dead tree hung with a drum-like target, and even a couple of warped tree stumps, but no one yelling for help. She frowned and strained her ears again, hoping that whoever was calling out was still alive and able to scream. Another spitting noise, followed by a cry of "Aah! Stop!" reached her ears. Linkali snapped to the left and ran through that tunnel.

She dashed through two more pieces of the twisting woods, following the cries of the distressed victim. Lin worried if she would be able to not only reach them in time, but if she would be able to fend off their assailant. But she pushed on, despite the unknowns, and was rewarded after she chose a left-facing tunnel.

The hollow log ended in a wide forest meadow, where a patch of tall grass lined the far end and a lightning-struck tree stood watch. Two bushes rustled in one of the corners. There were no people in the clearing, which confused Lin, until she heard the fearful victim give another piercing shriek of pain. The cry came from the two bushes, and with a gut-twist of shock, Linkali realized that the bushes were not merely _rustling_—they were alive and moving! _So that rumor was true,_ she thought with a shudder. "Plants with sentience" was not an idea that settled well with her, and she wanted to back away slowly before she was noticed.

Just then, the bushes gave twin spits, and Linkali watched as the nuts they shot out exploded between them with bright flashes. She heard the victim wail, _"Stop! Please!"_ and immediately forgot her plans to sneak away. The Hookshot in her grip was still tensed and ready for action. The Hylian youth gripped the main body of the unusual weapon and shoved it roughly against the base. She took aim on one of the bushes and released the body of the Hookshot. The chain fired out with a small _pow_, and the hook streaked out to embed itself in the back of one of the bushes. **(2)** The bush squealed loudly and fell over; the second bush spotted Linkali reel the chain back in with a twist of the handle and tried to flee. The girl was after it, ready for a second shot. She fired, catching the bush in mid-hop. It, too, fell over and burst into smoke.

Nervously, Lin made her way back to the corner where the two bush-monsters had been rustling and spitting. She clipped the Hookshot back onto her belt, knelt down, and took what she could only assume was their victim into her hands gently. It was glowing with a soft blue light as Linkali held it, and as she watched the light dimmed until it was nearly out. The girl gasped. She was holding in her hands what looked like a small woman. She was a few inches shorter than Lin's hand and fingers, stocky of build, with a close-cropped tangle of white-streaked gray-blue hair. The woman's unclothed skin—which was covered in burns, scrapes, and other small wounds—was also tinged with blue, and four gossamer wings, one of which had a small chip in the side of it, sprouted from her back. She wasn't just a woman; she was a fairy!

Linkali brought the fairy closer to her face, her heart leaping into her throat with worry. The fairy's bare chest (though she did have breasts and they were uncovered, they were really not what the girl holding her was interested in) moved up and down with each shallow breath she took. She appeared to be in a great deal of pain. Lin drew in a shaky breath. "What do I do, what do I do?" she whispered fearfully, cradling the unconscious fairy in her hands. _Water! There was a pool not far from here. I can use that to clean her wounds…If I can get back to where I saw it._

The young Hylian didn't know if she would be able to do any real good, and it wasn't as if she could find anyone who could help her. She'd always been told that the fairies had died out long ago, and yet the little woman in her hands was unmistakably one of them! The glow from her body had stopped fading, but its dimness was not encouraging. Linkali held the fairy to her chest and ran lightly through the log tunnels on quaking legs. By some miracle (or perhaps the Goddesses' intervention), she managed to find the pool of water again without getting lost. Carefully, she stripped off her pack, then her mantle, and laid the fairy down atop a bundle of the soft, green fabric. She took off her gloves, rinsed her hands in the pool, and tenderly began cleaning the blue fairy with drops of water from her fingertips. It was a nerve-wracking process; every time Lin's finger made contact, the injured fairy would flinch and whimper in a way that broke the heart of the girl kneeling beside her.

Linkali worked diligently and carefully, striving to clean the numerous burns and cuts that covered the fairy's small body. She had once heard that fairies were skilled at healing not only others, but also themselves, although this particular specimen seemed to be lacking in that area. The youth wanted to do something more than just bathe the fragile creature; she wanted to care for her and actually treat her wounds. But she didn't dare. She didn't know of any healing herbs off the top of her head, and even if she did and could find them, the idea of applying bandages and poultices to something so small and delicate made her sick with worry. Lin sighed. It seemed to her that she had already done all she could. She plucked a curled leaf and filled it with water, then set that beside the fairy, just in case she awoke thirsty. She also took a pinch off of the bread of the sandwich Zelda had given her, and set that down beside the leaf with water.

_Din—and Farore, and Nayru,_ she prayed silently, adding the other two in as a sort of afterthought when she remembered their names, _help her…I don't want her to die. I barely know her, but it doesn't seem fair that she should have to die like this._ With a sigh, Linkali sat back and pulled her knees to her chest; resting her chin on them, she folded her arms around her face and closed her eyes for a brief nap. She hadn't slept for long the previous night, and she quickly slipped into a light doze.

It couldn't have been much longer after that than the Hylian youth awoke to something fizzing and shooting around her head, and a small, high voice crying, "Link, Link!" Linkali jerked out of her cramped position, falling back and catching herself with outstretched hands. A winged orb of blue light was darting about excitedly, calling the Hero's name excitedly and jubilantly. Lin found herself jerking her head around to follow the ball of light, feeling incredibly confused and growing more so by the second. The voice continued, and it took a moment for the girl to realize that it was the same voice she had heard crying out for help earlier. It sounded much less distressed, though, and infinitely happier. "Link, you're alive! I _knew_ it! I _knew_ couldn't have been real! I was sick—it was nothing but a fever dream, wasn't it? You've been taking care of me, though, and I'm strong again because of how much you care about me!"

"Wh—what?" Lin stuttered as the fairy zipped in close to her face. She could see the body of a thickset woman, which was hidden by the glow from her body from a distance. She could also see the wild, almost maniacal joy in the fairy's eyes, and she watched it die the instant the young Hylian formed her single word.

The fairy drifted backwards, mouthing soundlessly and shaking her head. Her whole body was quivering, and the light she gave off was alternately brightening and dimming. "He…he never spoke," she whispered sadly. "You're not him…and that means…it really did happen." She gave a low moan and dropped through the air like a stone.

Linkali shoved herself to her feet with a startled cry and darted at the falling fairy, catching her safely her cupped hand with barely a foot between her and the ground. The fairy sat on the edge of Lin's palm, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. Her glow all but died out. "I'm sorry," she said in a tiny, miserable voice. "It's just that…I thought you were someone I used to know."

"Twenty Rupees says I know exactly who you're talking about," Linkali told her. There was wry humor in her voice, but also gentle sympathy. The fairy looked up with a sigh and began rising slowly into the air. She bobbed forlornly away from the young woman. "I'm sorry; maybe that wasn't the nicest thing I could have said to you right now."

The fairy paused, but hadn't seemed to have heard her. "He was…my partner," she mumbled brokenly.

"Partner…" Lin blinked, twitching as realization hit her. "Wait a minute…_Navi?!_"

"Yes?" The fairy turned. Linkali took a few strides towards her, her eyes and mouth open wide. The girl stood there, shaking her head in wonder.

"I—It's an honor to meet you," she said. "When I found you, I didn't even think that it could be _you_. Well, then again, I didn't actually think what I'd found _could_ be a fairy, since I was always told they'd gone extinct…"

"Found me?" Navi hummed closer, her head tilted to the side. "Wh…where was I? What happened?"

"You are probably not going to believe me when I tell you this, but…you were being attacked by these two bushes with red-orange leaves."

"Mad Scrubs?" Navi asked. Her glow increased just slightly. Linkali nodded.

"If that's what they're called, then yes." She shrugged. "After I took care of them, I saw you lying on the ground and brought you to this pool to see if I could treat your wounds. You looked pretty rough; I'm surprised you pulled through so quickly." It was true, for the fairy didn't seem to have a scratch on her anymore. Navi shrugged, glancing to the side. "I heard that fairies could heal themselves, but…you didn't seem to be doing it very well."

"I've always been a little slow with it," Navi admitted. "What you've heard is true, although forest fairies can only use those powers when we feel great compassion in ourselves, or when we sense it in others nearby." She studied Lin silently for a minute. "Were you…really that worried about me?"

"I didn't want you to die," Linkali replied. Navi's glow brightened a good bit more. Lin could still see her body, but it was only an outline against her blue inner light.

"Thank you," she said gratefully. "Tell me…What is your name?"

"Linkali," the girl replied. "But I'd be much happier if you called me 'Lin'." On a whim, she held out one of her hands, knuckles-up; to her surprise, Navi lighted down onto it and crouched there. Lin brought her hand closer to her face and smiled at the fairy.

"Well, Lin, I'm very glad you were there to help me," Navi told her. "I wish I had some way to repay the kindness you've shown me…"

"I can think of a way," Linkali replied. She'd been thinking about it ever since she had realized that the fairy she'd saved was none other than the former companion of the Hero of Time. Navi tilted her head to the side curiously. "From what I've read about you, you seem to have a very thorough knowledge of Hyrule and the monsters that inhabit it."

"I don't mean to brag, but, yes," Navi murmured, glancing to the side somewhat bashfully. She grinned, and her glow stepped up a little more. The outline of her body was swallowed by it, and she appeared to be nothing more than a pale blue orb of light with wings.

"Today marks the first time in my life that I've ever actually _left_ my village and not been with someone else," Lin continued. "I don't know much about the land outside my home, and I hardly know anything about monsters—as evidenced by the fact that I thought those Scrubs were bushes. I would be honored if you would travel with me and help me out."

"Help you out in what?" Navi asked. Linkali grinned.

"Well!" she declared, gathering up her belongings and starting for one of the log tunnels. "Where do I _begin…_?"

* * *

Lin finished explaining all that Zelda had told her just as she and Navi were stepping out of the final log tunnel and leaving the woods. The fairy perched on her shoulder listened with interest, her bright eyes understanding. When the Hylian youth closed her mouth, she spoke. "I could already sense the piece of the Triforce within you," she said. "I guess that was part of why I mistook you for Link at first."

"Do I look that much like him?" Linkali had to ask. Navi frowned and hovered around her briefly.

"Well," she said at length, "you don't look _like_ him, but you do look somewhat _similar_ to him. You've got almost the same build, and you're close to his height, but your face is a different shape and you have a woman's figure." She paused. "Oh, but Lin—your _eyes_. They're exactly like his, the color and depth and everything." A note of longing crept into her voice for a moment, and she shook herself somewhat roughly. "But…that's really it. At first glance, you might fool someone who wasn't really paying attention, but…you don't really look _like _him. People probably wouldn't mistake you for his sister, but you could pass for a close cousin, if he'd had either of those." Silence fell between the two of them for a minute, then Navi gave a contented sigh. "Ah, the Kokiri Forest! You know, I've been hiding out in the Lost Woods ever since that dark day…all those…years ago…"

"Hold that thought," Lin interrupted. "_Ko_kiri? I've always learned it as _Kiri_kiri. It sounds like you're confusing the name of my village—which is odd because I don't think I've told it to you yet—with the name of this forest."

"It's definitely _Ko_kiri," Navi told her. "I don't know why you'd think otherwise."

"I think otherwise because the _Kiri_kiri live here."

"And what exactly are Kirikiri?"

Linkali shrugged. "They're like little children," she explained, holding her hand about three feet from the ground. "But their ears are big and sort of round—like the ears of mice. And they have little tails on their backsides. Some people call them mouse-children, but they call themselves the Kirikiri." She balked, remembering what Zelda had told her earlier. _Hyrule has been living under a dark cloud for so long that many things about the land have changed…Including some of its peoples._ She turned to Navi. "You're _sure_ this place used to be called _Ko_kiri?" she asked. The fairy nodded. "I have an inkling, and I don't think you're going to like it—considering what I read about the Kokiri and fairies. But in order to see whether I'm right or not, we're going to have to find one of the Kirikiri."

**(1) Since it's her starting weapon, the Hookshot will be a more powerful weapon in this story than it is in the actual game. (ie, it's not going to suck.)**

**(2) How exactly **_**does**_** the Hookshot work? I've always wondered, and I've never been able to get a good camera angle to see how it fires. I had to make something up. Hopefully, it makes sense.**


	12. 11: Sri, Sage of Forest

"Hey!" Navi cried suddenly, startling Linkali so badly that the girl jumped at least six inches into the air. The fairy's piercing shout seemed to ring out through the quiet forest.

"What was that?" Lin asked incredulously.

"What was _that_?" Navi demanded, her blue glow flashing from yellow to green as she darted across the clearing. Linkali ran after her, shaking her head in confusion. She saw something dark sprinting on all fours, just ahead of the excited fairy, dodging from shelter to shelter and bursting away when Navi got too close. She had a feeling she knew what it was, and she began sidestepping around the two other creatures to head them off. The youth positioned herself just behind a large, crumbling stone pillar, and when the time was right, she lunged out and grasped the creature Navi had been chasing. It struggled in her arms, making breathy, drawn-out squeaking sounds. Linkali laughed and embraced it.

That seemed to alleviate any anxiety it creature had. It relaxed in her arms for a brief moment, then began wriggling and squirming, making soft _hree, hree_ noises as it did. Lin laughed again as little hands scrabbled against her face gently. The creature slipped out of her arms, crawled over her shoulder, slid down her back, and landed with a _thump_ on the ground behind her. She turned and smiled. "I got you!" she said.

"Iss!" the creature responded with a nod. It looked almost like a little boy at first glance, but it didn't take much more than a second look to see that it was not like any other boy. The child's face was round, but its nose was flattened, and its cheeks and face seemed to come to a vague point in the front, like a rodent's muzzle. His ears were rather large and round, but they still had little points on the ends. His hands and feet were small; his fingers and toes were rather short, and they ended in tiny claws. A short mouse tail, barely eight inches in length, poked out from a hole in the back of his ragged, green shorts. It was a Kirikiri.

Linkali knelt down and offered her hand, which the mouse-child sniffed eagerly. His nose twitched. He sat back on his haunches and combed one of his hand-paws through his ginger-blonde hair. "Quick to catch Kirirkiri," he told her, jerking a stubby thumb at his bare chest. He spoke in the short, snappy way that his people were known for. "Name Riido, Boss of Kirikiri. You want play?"

Lin heard Navi's chiming quivering and saw the fair's shuddering light out of the corner of her eyes. She had expected something like this to happen, although she couldn't say she was pleased to be right. In fact, she almost wished she could have been wrong. She turned over her shoulder to give Navi an apologetic look, and heard Riido give a sudden squeal of shock. Linkali whipped back around to see what had happened, only to see the Kirikiri boy pointing a shaking finger at the fairy. His blue eyes were huge and round. He gave himself a brisk shake, blinked at Navi, pinched his paw, blinked at Navi…It almost looked like he was trying to wake himself up from a dream. After a few minutes, he stopped prodding and twitching, and settled for simply staring. "Not time for play," he said breathlessly. "Is time for showing. Come…must see other Kirikiri."

Riido turned around and crouched on all fours. Glancing over his shoulder, he nodded at Linkali. "Follow," he ordered. "And bring…bring shining bird." He pointed at Navi. Lin nodded her agreement, and the boy raced across the ground at breakneck speed. Even with her longer legs, the Hylian was hard-pressed to keep up with him.

"That's Mido," Navi whispered in her ear. "I'd remember him anywhere. It has to be him."

"I had a feeling this would be the case," Lin muttered. "Ganon's dark power has changed Hyrule since the time of the Hero. I guess the Kokiri changed into the Kirikiri over time—maybe they became like mice because they were timid and hid. Gods know they've had plenty of time to be transformed."

Navi was silent after that, and Linkali knew that the fairy was still trying to come to grips with the fact that she had been hiding in the forest for over one hundred years. The young Hylian wished she could have offered some sort of comforts, but before she could think of what to say or do, Riido stopped them in front of one of the treehouses.

"In here, is Kirikiri," he informed them, pointing to a small door. Lin figured she would need to crouch down in order to fit through. She did so without complaining, feeling Navi rest on her shoulder.

The inside of the house was dark (for the sun had barely risen over the forest) and warm, and smelled faintly of smoke and urine. It took a few minutes for Linkali's eyes to adjust to the dim light, but once they did, she could not help but stare. There were many items scattered about the room that looked like they might once have been things like a bed, a table, a bookshelf, a fireplace, but they had been gnawed and battered until they were almost unrecognizable. Shards of pottery mingled on the dirt floor with bones and feathers, as well as a few worn balls and other toys. There were at least ten Kirikiri, males and females, perched and huddled in the strangest of places. Their bright eyes glinted in the darkness. But that was not what intrigued Lin the most.

The walls of the house were plastered with ink and charcoal drawings. They were simple things, and a great deal were merely scribbles and abstract shapes, but a handful of the papers bore sketches of eerily familiar objects. One of them was of a treehouse like the one they were in now; in front of the house was a stick-figure boy with a tall cap and hair that covered half of his face. Another showed a tree with a rather long face drawn on its bark. Still another showed an image of what Linkali would have sworn, in front of gods and everyone, was a fairy—a crooked, winged circle with lines indicating light radiating out from it, and a trail of sparkles below it.

"Look at them, Lin," Navi was whimpering. "They're all alone—where are their fairy partners? And why do they look like little mice? This can't be right." Linkali gave the fretting fairy a sympathetic look. She wanted to offer words of comfort, but something distracted her first. She realized that she could hear the Kirikiri whispering, squeaking, and shuffling amongst themselves. Their keen eyes were focused on Navi, and they kept murmuring the words "shining bird" to one another. Finally, the Hylian youth turned to Riido.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Riido pointed to Navi. "Shining bird!" He couldn't help squealing the words louder, and the rest of the Kirikiri took up his cry. They continued to echo it in the background as Lin spoke:

"Riido, what is the shining bird? Is it important?" she asked. The mouse-child frowned.

"Shining bird is _that_." He pointed at Navi emphatically. "Is important? Not know," he answered, spreading his paws helplessly. "See it many times. Is almost always in awake-dreams. Must be important, but not look important. Is hard to know. Have many Dreaminks with shining bird." He shook his head. "But Kirikiri excited because shining bird is real. We see in dreams, make many Dreaminks. But is real!"

"What are Dreaminks?" Linkali asked curiously. Riido snorted, pouted, and scurried off. He returned a moment later with a stack of papers in his hands, and handed it to the girl to look through.

"Sometimes, Kirikiri have dreams when awake," he explained. "Different from dreams when asleep. Sleeping-dreams about playing, running, eating; these different. In awake-dreams, we see other worlds—see dreamworlds. When Kirikiri have dreams when awake, we give them ink, paper. They draw, make Dreaminks." He tapped the papers with a finger. "Those, Dreaminks." He gestured to the pages that wallpapered the house. "All those, Dreaminks."

"So, from what I understand," Linkali told Navi, though she doubted the fairy was listening, "They go into a trance and see visions of another world. They draw what they see, and those become the Dreaminks."

"These aren't visions of other worlds," Navi replied in a low murmur. She pointed to one of the pages, a drawing of the long-faced tree. "That's the Great Deku Tree. And that's the Know-It-All Brothers' house." The fairy turned back to Lin. "They aren't seeing other worlds. They're seeing their _past_, Lin—they're remembering a time when they were still the Kokiri!"

A cold jolt ran through the young woman's heart. "Wasn't the Sage of Forest one of the Kokiri?" she asked. Navi nodded. "What was her name?"

"Saria…But I don't see anyone who looks like her here." Navi shuddered. "Oh, Lin—they've got _tails!_ Little mouse tails!"

Linkali smothered a sigh. "I'm sure the Kirikiri are perfectly fine with their tails." Turning to the leader of the Kirikiri, she asked, "Riido, is there a Kirikiri whose name sounds similar to 'Saria'?" Riido blinked up at her for a few minutes, causing the girl to wonder if she should repeat her question. Before she could, though, the mouse-child scratched behind his ear thoughtfully.

"Sri?" he asked. "You want Sri?" Lin nodded; Riido sighed deeply. "You need luck. Sri went to Dark Woods, up there, to old stone place." He pointed in the general direction of what Navi had called the Lost Woods. "Is bad place for Kirikiri—not know why Sri go. Sri strange sometimes, but I like her." He hung his head sullenly. "Not matter now…Sri probably dead, eaten by monster or starved in forest."

"Don't say that," Linkali assured him, resting her hand on his narrow shoulder. The Kirikiri boy looked up curiously. "Riido, I'm going to find Sri. I'm sure she's alive and well, just a little lost."

"Sri gone many days," the mouse-child told her sadly. He paused, counted, and held up eight fingers. "Many days," he repeated. "Not see her again. Ohh, Sri! Ohh, Sri!" The other Kirikiri took up the mournful wailing, throwing back their heads and crying along with their leader. Linkali flinched away from the shrill sounds, barely overcoming the temptation to clap her hands over her sensitive ears. Just when she thought she couldn't stand it anymore, she heard an even higher-pitched rose rising out above the melee.

"Dreeeeeam!" it shrieked. "Dreeeeeam!"

The Kirikiri fell silent, and their cluster parted to reveal a mouse-girl with sunny blonde hair pulled back into two tight loops behind her. She was standing on her haunches, her hand thrust out in front of her. Her amethyst eyes were wide and glazed, and her mouth was gaping open. "Dreeeeeam!" she squealed again.

Riido snapped into action. He clapped his paws together. "Paper, ink!" he ordered, and a few of the Kirikiri rushed off to obey him. He turned to Linkali. "Faiido will make new Dreamink," he informed her matter-of-factly. "Faiido, sister." He pointed to himself.

"Fado," Navi whispered. "That's Fado, Mido's little sister."

Once the ink-dipped brush was near Faiido, the Kirikiri gripped it in both paws like a lifeline and began to draw with frantic sweeps. Her eyes stared unseeing into the distance, and her breath came in heaving gasps. The Kirikiri leaned in as one, tense with excitement. Faiido whimpered as she drew madly, then gave a sudden squeal and toppled backwards, the brush flying from her hands. One of the mouse-boys caught her before she hit the ground, and slowly eased her back onto her haunches again. Riido snatched up the newest Dreamink and studied it critically. He glanced from the page to Linkali, smiling and nodding to himself. After a moment, he brought it over to her and deposited it in her lap. Navi hummed down a little lower to get a better look at the image.

Faiido had drawn a rough image of a boy. His body was a sketchy rectangle with a line going across its middle and another diagonally across it. His head was an uneven circle with a long triangle coming off the top of it. He held in his hand (only his left arm, a thin line, was drawn in) what almost appeared to be a sword. Linkali frowned slightly. "That, Cap Boy," Riido told her. "See him, many Dreaminks. See him do brave things, save dream-worlds. Have same eyes as you." He gave a rodenty grin. "If you like Cap Boy, maybe you find Sri."

Riido turned around to the Kirikiri and clapped his handpaws together, uttering a sharp stream of squeaked orders. The mouse-children scrambled to obey, and after a minute, one of them returned. It had what looked like a necklace made of bones and teeth in its hands. Riido took the necklace from the Kirikiri, and turned back to Lin. He frowned. "You too tall," he grunted, waving one of his hands down. Linkali bent her head lower, and the mouse-child slipped the necklace over her head. The Hylian girl studied it curiously. The central pendant was the dull-white skull of a small bird, with a cord looped through the eye sockets. Hollowed-out legbones from some unknown animal were strung alongside the skull, followed by a few beads, vertebrae, and another cluster of beads at the back. A little confused by the gift, she looked back at Riido.

"Amulet," he informed her, pointing to the necklace. "Means you are friend of Kirikiri. For letting us see shining bird is real." He grinned at Navi meaningfully.

Linkali smiled. "Thank you, Riido," she said. "I promise, I'll find Sri." Her words caused the Kirikiri to burst into gleeful cheers. The mouse-children followed her out of the house, prancing happily around her ankles and frolicking after her. A few of them had produced bone flutes, which they tooted on as they ran, filling the forest with the eerily-pitched notes. The closer she got to the entrance of the Lost Woods, though, the more Kirikiri dropped back and watched her progress from a distance. When she reached the foot of the first ridge, only Riido walked beside her, padding along on all fours. (His limbs were short enough, Lin noticed, that he could actually move around that way quite effectively.) The boy crawled up the side of her leg and perched on her shoulders as she climbed up the vines, then hopped off as she neared the top. He waited for her to pull herself up before he spoke.

"Find Sri," he pleaded. "Riido is Boss of Kirikiri, but Sri is also Boss, almost. Kirikiri nervous without Sri. Sri is like bottle of fireflies at night; no one scared with Sri around."

"I'll find her," Linkali vowed. Riido smiled, nodded, sniffed the skull on the Hylian's amulet, and scurried back down the vines to be with the rest of his people. Lin glanced over at Navi, nodded, and started walking towards the log tunnel that led into the twisting forest.

"I bet that when he said the 'old stone place', he was referring to the Forest Temple," Navi said, bobbing alongside the girl as they walked through the first log. Linkali nodded. "You'd need the Hookshot to get up there, which you already do."

"Lead the way, Navi," the Hylian youth declared, gesturing broadly at the three log tunnels that now faced them. The fairy drifted from side to side, then to the middle, and chose the passage on the right. Linkali followed after her, glad in the strangest way that she had found someone to share her journey with her.

* * *

Lin twisted the handle of the Hookshot deftly and took aim on the dead tree that hung over the stone landing outside the Forest Temple. She wrapped one hand around the column of the strange weapon and hesitated, glancing up at Navi. The fairy bobbed up and down encouragingly. Taking a deep breath, Linkali placed her hand back on the column and pushed down, releasing it swiftly to avoid snagging her hand on the chain. (A painful lesson she had learned the first time she'd used it earlier that morning.) The pointed hook shot out and thudded deep into the bark of the tree. The Hylian youth paused again, her eyes going from tree to Hookshot barrel; she was hesitant to reel in the chain, for fear that the hook had not snagged as deeply as she'd first thought. The last thing she wanted was for the hook to come out, especially if it took part of the tree with it.

"Lin, maybe you haven't had the chance to see this for yourself yet," Navi began slowly, "but the Hookshot…If you don't reel in the chain after a certain amount of time, it—"

She never finished her sentence, because Linkali's wild shout of surprise downed out her small voice. The Hookshot chain rattled as it wrapped itself around the barrel of the weapon once again; when the chain reached the hook, the metal point popped free of the old wood, and the Hookshot was ready to be fired a second time. Lin couldn't clamp down on the "Ah!" that the drop onto the stone landing jerked out of her. Navi zipped around her head worriedly.

"Lin! Are you all right? Say something!" the fairy cried. Linkali grinned up at her.

"That was _fun!_" she replied happily. She held up the Hookshot, eyeing it with pride and something approaching affection. "I think I _like_ this weapon, Navi." The blue fairy heaved a sigh, though it was not an unhappy one, and flitted over to the empty stone doorway. Her glow illuminated some of the weathered, moss-encrusted stones of the entrance.

Linkali pushed herself up and walked calmly over to where her companion hovered. She pressed her hand against the old stone, almost reverent in her gentleness. She wondered just _how_ long this Temple had stood where it did. It had been old when the Hero had explored it, and it was even older now. The girl's fingers lingered over the cold lichen, stroking it softly. If she closed her eyes and focused, Lin swore she could feel the incredible energy the Forest Temple radiated. She felt a strange tingle of familiarity, and wondered if it had anything to do with her role as the Incarnation of the Hero. Zelda had said that she was not a reincarnation of the Hero of Time, nor was she him in a second coming…but Linkali had to wonder if perhaps some of what he had lived had been passed on to her along with the Triforce of Courage.

There was no time to ponder such things, though. Lin opened her eyes and shook her head, both to scatter the thoughts that had gathered there and to answer Navi's query of "Is anything wrong, Lin?" The Hylian girl smiled up at the fairy.

"I was just thinking about something," she responded.

"Well, you might want to keep your mind on the Temple," Navi warned her. "For all we know, this place could be crawling with monsters, and that Hookshot of yours isn't a melee weapon—and I think we can safely count the Master Sword out as a weapon of any sort in its current state. You'll be in huge trouble if you let enemies gang up on you." Linkali nodded in agreement, and the pair set off into the Forest Temple.

"I just hope I don't run into a situation where I'd need a melee weapon," the Hylian said, shifting her gaze away from the Temple to glance at Navi. She wanted to say more, but a drawn-out howl cut her off. She noticed that the fairy's blue glow had made a sudden shift to bright yellow. Navi swung around behind Linkali and hovered over the head of a lumbering, loping animal almost as tall as the youth herself.

"Hey!" Navi yelled in warning. Lin's eyes widened.

"What in _Farore's_ name is that?" she blurted out, unable to see clearly in the low light of the temple.

"A Wolfos!" the fairy replied. "Draw it close to you and watch its movements carefully! Attack it when it drops its guard!"

Linkali sighed as she back away from the lone monster warily. If only Ganga were here with her! She'd heard tales of the massive black dog fighting off a Wolfos that had threatened Kokoria's flock of goats. The girl narrowed her eyes as she watched the beast approach, its eerie green eyes tinged with yellow from the body of the fairy humming above its head. Ganga was back at the village; Lin was going to have to figure out how to take care of herself. _Draw it close,_ she thought, and stopped backing away for the moment. _Attack when it drops its guard._ She torqued the handle of the Hookshot and gripped the barrel with one hand in readiness.

The Wolfos shambled closer, its long tongue trailing out of the corner of its mouth. It howled and reared up onto its short hindlegs. Linkali tensed, the hand on the barrel of the Hookshot tightening its grip. She bit her lower lip, waiting for the opening Navi had promised her. She still had room to retreat if need be, but she hoped it wouldn't come to that. The Wolfos, huffing and drooling, drew back one of its long forelegs in preparation to strike. Its hooked claws gleamed dully in the glow from Navi's body, and their dangerously sharp tips seemed to sparkle. Lin wrenched her gaze away from those talons and turned it to the Wolfos's chest, which was currently unguarded. That _had_ to be the dropped guard the fairy had warned her about. The Hylian youth punched the Hookshot barrel down roughly, releasing it with a cry.

The metal hook shot towards the Wolfos, ripping right through its dense, matted fur and plowing deep into its body. The wounded monster bayed shrilly, and flipped over backwards to try and free itself from the pain. Linkali yanked back on the Hookshot's handle and barrel, and succeeded it tugging the hook loose before the frantic Wolfos could pull her off her feet with its frantic running. She twisted the handle again, preparing a second shot. The Wolfos was avoiding her, cowering and yelping as it tried in vain to scrabble up the vine-furred walls of the first room. Lin hesitated; somehow, she wasn't totally sure she wanted to do this. Her opponent looked more frighten_ed_ than fright_ful_, as it cringed and whined painfully in the corner of the room. A very un-warrior-like emotion stopped all thoughts of attack: pity.

The young woman lowered the Hookshot and began walking towards the Wolfos, which tried to shove itself even further into the corner when it saw her approach. Linkali stopped a few feet away and crouched down. She could see small pools of blood along the ground, forming a trail that led to the wounded monster. She held out her hand. "Hey…hey, don't hide," she whispered gently. The Wolfos looked over at her mournfully. "Come on…let's take a look at you…"

"Lin, what are you doing?" Navi hissed in disbelief. "If you're that worried about its wellbeing, why don't you just put it out of its suffering now?"

"What if it didn't mean to attack me, though?" Lin asked. "What if it was just afraid of me, and it thought it had to defend itself?"

"It's a Wolfos; I'm pretty sure it _meant_ to attack you." The fairy crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in the air with an angry pout on her face.

The Wolfos poked its snout closer to the girl's hand while she was bickering with Navi. Linkali heard a whimper and turned to see the wounded beast bring its nose close to her fingers. She smiled gently down at it, and began preparing a lecture about mercy for her fairy friend. However, before she could even think of how to start it, the Wolfos, which had opened its mouth to apparently lick the youth's hand in peace, gave a sudden snarl and bared its teeth. Linkali snatched her hand away just in the nick of time; she heard the wolf-like monster's fangs snap together over empty air.

She reached for the Hookshot, and the Wolfos bunched its legs and leapt over her head with a wild howl. Its chest bled freely, but it was far from giving up the fight. It snarled bravely and let loose a furious howl. Lin prepped the Hookshot for another firing and aimed at her opponent. The Wolfos bounded toward her, tongue flapping, jaws dripping, claws tensed to tear Hylian flesh. It flung itself up onto its back legs, aimed a foreleg attack, gave voice to a howl that could wake the dead—

—and took a Hookshot point right to the heart.

Linkali watched as the wolf-monster exploded into smoke with a final, dying howl. Her legs were shaking, and she found it hard to believe that she had actually killed a monster. The Stalchilds on the Field didn't count—they were already dead, as far as she cared. The Mad Scrubs didn't count either—Lin hadn't known they were alive at the time. But the Wolfos…it had been a living, breathing creature, whose heart had beaten and whose lungs had breathed. It had had a mother at some point in its life, a mother who had bathed its fur, and fed it milk, and taught it how to hunt and howl. She'd killed it. The shock of the revelation nearly caused her to drop the Hookshot with a guilty sob. Navi cut in before she could even think of crying.

"Lesson One," the fairy snapped, swooping in front of the girl's face and back out again in her agitation, "Mercy is not a concept monsters understand! You're going to have to learn that with monsters, you either _kill_ or you _are_ killed."

Linkali gripped the Hookshot tightly, her eyes wide as she watched the angry, darting Navi. The fairy's skin was giving off a rather heated-looking red light, and her wings were buzzing loudly in her agitation. The young Hylian dropped her face shamefully, and her arms fell limp at her sides. She was getting a scolding for her foolishness, and she knew it was well-deserved. Her body flashed hot and cold with embarrassment as Navi's tirade continued; the fairy raved—in an increasingly worried-sounding tone of voice—about how deceptive monsters could be, how things weren't always as they appeared, and how if Lin wasn't careful, she could find herself in serious trouble because you could never tell what a monster was thinking, and that any weakness it showed was probably an act to lure you in closer so that it could have a clear shot at you.

Navi was panting for breath by the time she noticed Linkali's troubled body language. Her scarlet light faded out, and her normal blue glow returned. She hummed down and hovered in front of the girl's face. "Lin…?" she asked quietly. "Lin, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have flared up at you like that. It's just that I…" She trailed off, glancing around; her voice grew tight as she continued, "I've seen what happens when someone assumes that a monster is harmless just because it isn't actively attacking them. And I don't want to see that happen to you."

"It isn't your fault," Linkali murmured sadly. "I'm the one who should be sorry, and I _am_. I asked for you to help me through the quest set before me, and when you tried to help me, I ignored you. If I had listened, none of this would have happened."

"All right, so we're both pathetically sorry." Navi parked her fists firmly on her round hips and grinned. Linkali lifted her eyes to meet the fairy's, and smiled tentatively. "Ahh! There we go! Now, as touching as this bonding experience is, it's not getting us any closer to the Sage of Forest." She bent down and patted the Hylian girl's cheek fondly with one of her tiny hands. With that, the stocky fairy darted back and zipped towards the door at the end of the room. She bobbed there, a ball of blue light in the dark corner of the Temple. "Come on, partner! Let's go already!"

Lin balked, one side of her smile stretching up faster and higher than the other. _She called me her "partner."_ The girl raced over to the door; her sadness over the Wolfos's death and her shame at her scolding were quickly forgotten.

* * *

Linkali was glad that she had learned to listen to Navi early on in the Temple; the fairy knew things about the old stone building and the monsters within than Lin could have ever guessed, and she never would have survived if she'd blown off her new companion's advice. The challenges only ramped up as the day went on and the two of them pushed their way through the Forest Temple, and matters were made somewhat complicated by the fact that the girl did not have a useable sword. She wound up fleeing from several enemies that her Hookshot could not best, and now had a line of small cuts on her forehead—the result of an escape attempt that could have gone better. They stopped around one in the afternoon for a quick, late lunch, huddled back in the secrecy of a hallway corner beside a door. Linkali ate the sandwich Zelda had given her, while Navi—who said she wanted to get the girl patched up before she ate—cleaned out the scratches.

"Fortunately—stop twitching, Lin; I know it stings, but I can't help you if you keep flinching away like that—fortunately, the door didn't lock on you," Navi said, holding the youth's bangs away with one arm to treat the small wounds with the other.

"Yes, that really was—ah! Sweet _Farore_, Navi!—was a stroke of luck," Linkali replied, struggling not to cringe from the fiery prickle of the fairy's healing magic. It wasn't that it _hurt_; it was just a very unusual and unexpected sensation, and some part of Lin's instincts had decided that it should be avoided. "After we—yih!—finish here, what's next?"

"The room where we found the Fairy Bow is that one beside you," the fairy replied. "There—finished, and not even a scab or scar!" With that, she dropped down onto the young Hylian's knee and gratefully took the pinch of bread and cheese Linkali offered her. She devoured it in massive bites while the girl spoke.

"Thank you," Lin said. "I can't come home looking any different from when I left. My parents think I'm helping an old woman do chores around the house today, not crawling through a monster-infested Temple in search of a Sage who's forgotten who she is." She shrugged and glanced at the door beside her. "So, the Bow, huh? Zelda said that the weapons found in the Temples made their way back to where they were before…Do you really think we'll find it in there?"

"If Princess Zelda said so, then I'd believe it," Navi told her, and held out her hands hungrily. Linkali turned the sandwich around so that the unbitten side of it faced the fairy. Navi smiled as she tore off a piece for herself. "My only concern is that when Link was here, the Fairy Bow was being guarded by a pair of Stalfos warriors. They're fairly easy enemies to take down if you're a cautious fighter, but battling them is probably only possible with a sword and shield…neither of which do you possess." And with that, she took a rather large bite of bread.

"Are you sure there's no other way?" asked Linkali, starting to get a little worried. "If it's impossible…" Navi frowned, chewed, and swallowed.

"I didn't say it was _im_possible," the stocky fairy reminded her. "It's just _not very_ possible. It could be done, I'm sure, but it probably wouldn't be easy. But who knows—there may be a completely different enemy guarding the Bow these days, one that will fall easily to your Hookshot. This Temple isn't exactly how I remember it; things have changed."

"There is only one way to find out whether or not this part of the Temple has stayed the same," Lin pointed out, "and that's to go in and see for ourselves." Navi nodded in agreement before she took another huge bite. The girl swallowed a grin. She should have expected a small creature like Navi to have a frenzied metabolism, but somehow she couldn't help being amused by how voraciously the fairy ate.

When the sandwich was gone, Linkali and Navi did not move immediately from their positions beside the door. Though neither said so, both of them were clearly worried about what could be lying in wait for them. Lin found herself wishing that she was back at the village with Bartal, where the only uncertainty was whether the sport they were practicing at the moment would kill them or not. She sighed and pushed herself to her feet; Navi floated up after her. _If wishes were fishes,_ the Hylian youth thought, evoking one of her mother's favorite expressions, _there would be no room for water in the sea._ Linkali's hand stole towards the pouch of Medallions at her waist. Like it or not, this was something she was going to have to do, and if it meant stepping into the unknown, then Lin would step.

Besides, hadn't the Warrior's Spirit said she could face the challenges laid before her, and triumph?

"I'm ready," the girl murmured. She released her breath in a shuddering sigh and, gripping the Hookshot with one hand, pushed her other palm against the door. It slid up, and Linkali stepped into the room as quietly as she could. The door fell behind her with a low _thomm_; much to her relief, no iron bars slid down to block her escape.

Lin bit her lip, glancing over at Navi warily in the silence. The large, round room was empty, save for a number of clay jars scattered around its edges and a large wooden chest in the center. The girl's blue eyes darted around the chamber, seeking the monsters that _had_ to be lurking in the shadows. Her whole body was tense, and the hand gripping the Hookshot's handle was shaking just slightly. The seconds ticked past, becoming minutes, and nothing lunged out to attack.

Linkali snapped her gaze to the high ceiling above, wary of an aerial assault or perhaps an opponent leaping down to meet her. Nothing; there wasn't even anywhere for a monster to hide up there. Would the attack come from below, then? Her eyes flicked down to the ground, shifting from side to side suspiciously. Still nothing…Maybe they were waiting until she moved.

She licked her lips nervously and took a few steps. No ambush rose to greet her. The room remained as silent and empty as ever. Lin took in a deep breath and held it, straining her pointed ears for even the slightest of sounds. She took another step, froze, listened, took another step, froze, listened…on and on, until she stood in front of the wooden chest.

Would the attack begin once she _opened_ the chest? Linkali looked to Navi for guidance. The fairy stared back at her, looking just as confused. After taking another swift look around the room, the youth set her hands against the lid of the chest and slowly pushed it open. The hinges creaked softly, and the sound seemed to echo off the walls of the empty room, bouncing and doubling over itself. Lin stiffened, her whole body rigid and tense. She looked around again, then down into the chest. The Fairy Bow sat at the bottom, alongside a quiver of fine arrows; the ancient weapon seemed to glow with a faintly mystical light.

Linkali reached into the chest, keeping one eye on the quiet room. Her heart was thundering in her chest. Now she was sure that the ambush would start as soon as she picked up the bow, and her fingers trembled as they closed around it. The Hylian snapped her body upright again, glancing at Navi. The fairy hovered with her fists drawn up against her chest; at Lin's look, she opened her hands and gave a tiny shrug of cluelessness.

Holding the bow and quiver to her chest, the young woman's eyes locked onto the door at the end of the room. Would the monsters appear when she tried to leave the room? She inched forward, taking the tiniest step towards her exit. The fall of her boot seemed to reverberate through the empty air. Linkali flinched at the sound, and hesitantly took another, slightly larger step. That was followed by another, and another, until Lin was sprinting flat-out towards the door, clutching her treasures to her heart. Navi hummed behind her. Both girl and fairy were wide-eyed as they sped towards the door. Linkali thrust out her hand and slammed her palm against it, all but leaping through it and into the hallway outside. Navi zipped out in front of her.

The door slammed shut behind them, and Lin slammed her back against it as if to barricade it with her own body. She looked down at her hands and saw the Fairy Bow and it quiver resting safely in her arms. She'd taken them without a fight. There hadn't been a single monster in that room. All of that worry for nothing! The girl looked over at her fairy companion. For a few moments, all they could do was blink at each other in stunned silence.

Then, as if in response to some silent, hilarious joke, the two of the burst into loud, uproarious laughter.

* * *

"Up ahead, Lin—I can sense something!" Navi cried excitedly. Linkali glanced at the stairway with interest, toying idly with the Fairy Bow in her hand. She found in amazing—and almost a little frightening—that after spending a century and a half locked away in a chest, the wood of bow had not been eaten away by insects and its string was perfectly stretched and waxed. She jerked her mind away from the weapon in her grasp and turned her attention to her fairy partner.

"What is it?" she asked curiously. "The Sage of Forest?"

"I don't know if I'd be able to sense _her_, in that _form_," the fairy replied. "Those powers and auras were sealed away…"

"Is what you sense good or bad?" Linkali asked, setting her foot on the first step. Navi hesitated. "You don't think Phantom Ganon could be waiting for us up there, do you?"

"Certainly not," Navi told her. "Ganon banished that abomination to the space between dimensions. No." She drifted ahead a bit, and Lin followed after her slowly. "No," she repeated. "I'm not entirely sure what it is I sense. It's nothing evil, I can tell you that much; at the same time, though, it's not exactly saintly. I'd say neutral…erring on the side of good."

"It might be Sri," Lin said, sliding the bow diagonally over her shoulders so that it rested alongside its quiver on her back. "Do you think?"

"We'll find out shortly, I suppose." Navi paused at the top of the staircase, waiting for the youth to catch up to her. "Just keep your guard up, Lin—we can't be sure of what awaits us." Linkali nodded in agreement and took the bow from her shoulders. One hand gripped that, while the other strayed towards the handle of the Hookshot. Her heart began to beat faster as she stepped onto the circular platform at the center of the large room.

The chamber was silent, save for a small scuffling noise from beneath the platform. The Hylian youth padded towards the middle of the room hesitantly, her head sweeping left and right as she sought the opponent that was sure to appear. Navi bobbed beside her, her bright blue glow casting some of the only light in the vast room. Linkali walked to the far end of the platform and peered down off the side curiously. She could almost see something moving around in the shadows on the floor, but it was too dark to be sure. She flicked her hand to gain Navi's attention, then pointed down. The fairy's light happened to illuminate a rickety-looking ladder on the side of the platform, and Lin started down it slowly.

She probably could have jumped down without hurting herself too seriously, but that "probably" was not a risk Linkali felt like taking that day. The ladder creaked and groaned in her hands as she descended, and the shuffling sounds from the floor rose to a fever pitch. Lin felt the hairs on the back of her neck start to rise. Would she have to duel in the dark, with Navi's glow as her only light? But her companion had said that she sensed no evil in this part of the Temple. The girl kept her attention riveted on what she _could_ see, figuring that the darkness that covered this part of the Forest Temple was just like the clouds over Hyrule: There was no changing it, so it was pointless to complain about it.

Navi drifted around below Linkali, casting her blue light over a piece of the ground. Lin looked over her shoulder at the fairy as she climbed down, listening to the scuffling noises rustle through the dark. Her feet touched the stone floor softly, and her hands returned to their former positions on her weapons—just in case. But no sooner was she tensed for action than she saw something out of the corner of her eyes that made her reconsider her plan of action. Something had darted at the edge of Navi's light, a swift flicker of black.

It had looked like a mouse's tail.

Lin crouched down, resting one knee on the ground. She heard breathless pants just ahead, and the pattering sounds ceased. She leaned towards the darkness. "Sri?" she whispered hopefully. "Sri, is that you?" Navi looked from girl to shadows in disbelief, then floated slowly further ahead. Her light touched on a narrow crevice in the wall, out of which a mouselike tail poked—a tail that was too large to belong to any mouse. "Sri?"

"Sri is Sri," a squeaking voice replied quietly after a few minutes of tense silence had passed. It came from the crevice. "But you…how you know Sri's name? How you know where to find poor Sri? Poor, hungry, lonely Sri."

"Riido told me where to find you," Linkali replied. "Come out."

There was a pause. "Sri is scared," the Kirikiri girl squeaked. "Sri does not trust you, strange stranger. Sri does not want to come out, not unless Sri knows you can be trusted. Many things in here try to hurt Sri…very scary place. Oh—Sri is lonely, but Sri is scared. Want to go back to forest, be with other Kirikiri, be with friends."

"Friends," Lin echoed to herself. She paused in thought for a minute, then reached down the collar of her mantle and pulled out the amulet Riido had given her. She held it towards the small hole in the side of the platform. "Sri, I'm a friend of the Kirikiri," she said. "Look—I have an amulet to prove it to you."

She heard an echoing sniff from the crack in the wall. The mouse tail disappeared, and after a few moments of muffled grunting, a Kirikiri face poked out of the narrow opening. It was a girl's face, with the rodent features typical of one of the mouse-children. Her hair was a strange shade of green, scruffy, and streaked with cobwebs and dust; it was kept back with what looked like an old, black hairband, and two curls of it curved under her pointed, mousey ears. Her dark blue eyes darted from the skull of the amulet to Linkali's face, and after a slight hesitation, she sniffed the amulet. Sri smiled warmly.

"Sri would like to get out of this place," she said.

Linkali grinned and waited for the Kirikiri girl to extract herself from her hiding place. Sri clambered up the teen's side, perching on her shoulder and rubbing her cheek against Lin's. Lin started back up the ladder calmly, glad that she had found the Sage of Forest unharmed. "You have shining bird with you," Sri pointed out excitedly, jabbing a stubby finger at Navi. "Shining bird—is really real?"

"Yes," Lin replied. "That's why Riido gave me the amulet. Because I showed him and the rest of the Kirikiri that shining birds were real." Sri nodded, hopping off of the girl's shoulder when the top of the platform was within reach. She sat back on her haunches and waited. Linkali crouched beside her, smiling.

"You are friend of Kirikiri," Sri told her, pushing her twitchy nose against Lin's affectionately. "You are friend of Sri."

Linkali balked, calling her mission to mind. Struggling to keep a conspiratorial edge off her smile, she grinned at the Kirikiri girl. "I want to give you something, Sri," she said. "Think of it as being like an amulet—it's just something to show that you and I are friends." Sri—intrigued, like any child is at the prospect of a present—sat up a little straighter and held out her paw-like hands eagerly. Lin laughed as she reached into her pouch and retrieved the Forest Medallion. "Here you are. Take this, as a symbol of our friendship."

The green medallion sat in Sri's upturned palm for a few seconds, then swiftly melted away and vanished into the Kirikiri's skin. Sri opened her mouth, probably to ask what had happened, and let out a shrill, terrified screech. Blinding silver light erupted out from the mouse-girl's body. Linkali squeezed her eyes shut and flinched away from the brightness. Her heart hammered against her ribs fearfully; she hadn't been expecting anything like this to happen. She heard Sri's cry cut off as the Kirikiri struck one of the poles at the edge of the platform, and cringed. The light died away as instantly as it had flared into life. "Sri? Sri!" Linkali cried as she raced towards the side of the platform.

A small child sat in a loose huddle against the pole, her head bowed. As Lin approached, though, she lifted her eyes and blinked in curious wonder. Her eyes flicked from Linkali's face to the Master Sword sheathed at the girl's hip. At first, a tremendous grin lit her round face, and she opened her mouth as if to speak; then, as she got a better look at the youth, some of the wild excitement faded and an edge of sadness dulled her smile. Linkali knelt down in front of her.

The girl sitting there was definitely not a Kirikiri; she looked like a normal Hylian child in every way. Her bright blue eyes were the same as Sri's, and her hair was the same color and style. She was leaner than the stocky mouse-child, though, with the long, straight limbs and the sure hands of a young child. She wore a dark green shirt with long sleeves, with a soft, green jumper overtop. Her close-fitting boots came up to her knees. As Lin watched, the girl gave a sudden twitch and her eyes widened—as if she had remembered something very important; she checked behind her swiftly, and let out a gusty sigh of relief. She turned back to Lin with a smile.

"I wasn't quite expecting that to be so…violent. But I'm glad _that's_ over and done with," she declared frankly. "How many years has it been? You know—since he…" She trailed off sadly.

"One hundred and fifty," Linkali replied. The girl stared openmouthed.

"You mean…to tell me…that I've had a…a _mouse tail_ for nearly a century and a half?!" she burst out, slamming her hands down on the platform. She shuddered and gave a disgusted groan. "Ugh! Can you imagine?" Before Lin could say anything, she grinned, seeming to forget her discomfort instantaneously. "So, you must be the One, then."

"Yes, I guess so," Lin answered. The child grinned even more broadly.

"Would you give me a hand up?" she asked, holding out one of her hands to the older girl. Linkali helped pull the child to her feet, noting with some surprise that the girl only came up to her hip. She was even shorter than Tali, although she looked to be the same age. The small girl began dusting herself off and straightening her clothes, combing the spiderwebs from her hair and setting her headband more firmly behind her narrow-pointed ears. "By the way, I'm Saria. And that trick with the Medallion was pretty clever."

"I'm Lin—actually, Linkali, but I go by 'Lin'." The Hylian youth grinned. "And thanks. I figured it would be a good way to give it back to you."

Saria winked. "You've just unsealed your first Sage, Lin," she said happily. "Doesn't that make you feel so accomplished? Oh—listen to me jabber on and on!" she blurted out before Lin could answer the question. "I'm like an old lady sometimes. Can't be helped, though, I suppose. Anyway, I'm supposed to take you with me. Take my hand!"

Linkali, a little confused by the friendly young Sage's random shifts in attention, obediently wrapped her hand around Saria's. Navi settled down on Lin's shoulder. The youth felt something pushing against her, shoving her upwards in a column of bright light. The Forest Temple spun beneath her as the group of three sped away.


	13. 12: The not so Sacred Realm

Saria touched down lightly on the scraggy, yellow grass and released Linkali's hand. The little girl stuck her hands on her hips and gazed around, frowning with a combination of thought and concern. She shook her head slowly, her blue eyes dark with sadness. "This isn't—" she began, only to break off as the tall youth beside her gave a sudden retch and covered her mouth. Saria gasped. "Oh no! Lin, I'm so sorry! It's my fault, totally my fault…I forgot to tell you to close your eyes, didn't I? Oh no!"

Linkali had one hand over her mouth, with the other resting on her turbulent stomach. She _had_ traveled with her eyes open, not knowing any better, and was now thoroughly regretting it. The journey had been nothing but a confusing whirl of colors, sounds, and light. Every so often, she saw a flicker of something fully formed, and the sight of it amid the visually confusing maelstrom had only made matters worse. She would have _loved_ to close her eyes during travel, but the sheer shock of all she saw had kept them riveted wide open. The girl felt bitter bile rising up in the back of her throat, and struggled to swallow it back. The effort left her gasping for breath, doubled over with her hands on her knees. Navi zipped around her head worriedly, calling her name.

"It's my fault entirely, Lin," Saria assured her, patting the older girl's shoulder in comfort. "I warped you two here," she added to Navi, "and that involves skipping through a few different dimensions, and bending a few laws of reality, and twisting some physics, and…well, it's not exactly pretty." The explanation only reminded Linkali of some of the things she'd seen, and she retched again, swallowing hard against it. She took a few deep breaths, and opened her eyes slowly. The sight of firm, unmoving ground below her boots proved to be a great help, and after a few moments, she was able to stand up straight again.

"Where…are we, exactly?" she asked slowly, looking around in awe. The world around her was dead and silent, with the horizons fading away into blurred darkness. The area immediately surrounding her, though, was a wide, flat plain covered in short, prickly grass with a few withered bushes and plants. To one side, she could see the skeleton of what was surely once a mighty forest; the scabby trunks of the trees were a dull shade of brown, and a number of them had ragged stumps where their once-proud limbs had been ripped off. Lin could see a mountain in the distance made of grayish-red stone, and the crack-traced crater of what looked to be a dried-up lake. The shadows seemed somewhat deeper and more distinct here, and the weak light that bathed the place was gray; it seemed to rob the dead landscape of much of its feeble colors.

"This is…or perhaps, _was_…the Sacred Realm," Saria replied sadly.

"'Was'?" Linkali echoed. The Sage of Forest nodded.

"I figured that something like this would have happened after we sealed ourselves away," she murmured. "But I didn't think that it could be as bad as this. This…this is much worse that I thought possible. This is just terrible." She began walking slowly across the field; Lin followed after her.

"What happened here?" she asked curiously. She found it hard to believe that this place—this cold, colorless, dusky place—could possibly be the Sacred Realm. It didn't seem possible for the holy place above Hyrule could be so…lifeless.

"In order to understand that," Saria replied, "you'd have to have an understanding of what happened one hundred and fifty-seven years ago, and the implications of it, and all kinds of things like that." She shrugged and pointed to the Master Sword at Linkali's waist, the hilt of which peeked over her left hip. "You know that after he gathered the three Spiritual Stones, Link opened the Door of Time and pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal." Lin nodded. "Think of it like this: The Temple of Time is like the gatehouse for the Sacred Realm. The Door of Time is like the entrance. The Pedestal of Time is the lock on the gates, and the Master Sword is the key." She paused, grinning despite the seriousness of her explanation. "So that's the Sword of Time, in the Pedestal of Time, behind the Door of Time, in the Temple of Time. That's a lot of 'of Time's, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lin agreed, smiling a little. Saria nodded.

"When the Hero pulled the sword, he unlocked the gates to the Sacred Realm," she continued. "That's how Ganon snuck in and grabbed at the Triforce. When the Triforce broke apart, though, and he left, he left the gates wide open; when Hyrule became twisted under his dark power, those corruptive forces were able to enter the Sacred Realm, and they caused some damage." She sighed. "Now, if all had gone according to plan, after Ganon's defeat, Link would have placed the Master Sword back in the pedestal, thus locking the gates of the Sacred Realm and allowing us Sages to start in on the cleanup. But, as I'm sure you know…that never happened."

Linkali rested her hand on the hilt of the sword, though she knew that if anything should leap at her, the shattered blade would not save her. "So the gates to the Sacred Realm have been wide open for over one hundred and fifty years," she said, a little shocked. Saria nodded grimly.

"It shows, doesn't it?" the young Sage asked. "It didn't use to look like this, believe me. Once we were awakened, us Sages did our level best to cull the spread of darkness in here. But…once we were forced to seal ourselves away for safety…I guess it's like trying to keep deer out of your garden. You know? You're smarter than the deer, and you have what it takes to keep them out of your peapatch, but the deer are awake when you're sleeping, and they have all night to get into your garden." She shrugged. "The Sages are smarter than the darkness, and we _can_ force it out…but it was awake while we slept, and it's had all this time to wreck our home."

Saria sighed and knelt down in front of a thirsty, twisted sapling tree. She cupped her hand under one of its brittle leaves. Linkali watched in silence as the young girl closed her fingers gently over the leaf; when she opened her hand, there was nothing but a pile of dull-green dust. The Kokiri lifted her open hand to her mouth and blew the dust away. She turned her attention back to the dead tree and stroked its bark tenderly. Where her fingers touched, small streaks of brighter color began to appear, as if she had wiped away a layer of dust and death.

As Lin watched, Saria moved her hands like a potter working clay—shaping, smoothing, straightening. The tree responded to her touch and grew back to life. She ran her finger down the length of a branch, pulling it straighter and longer as if she held an invisible string. She pushed her fingertips together, then flung them outwards; the branch exploded with green leaves. A slow smile crossed her round face; the Sage of Forest worked swiftly to restore the sapling to its former glory. In a matter of minutes, the small tree stood tall once more, its branches bursting with leaves and glistening with health and life. It seemed to glow faintly with light, a tiny beacon of hope in the darkness. Linkali couldn't keep from applauding softly. Saria turned to her with a shy grin.

"It's cool, I know," she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. "But it's only a little thing." Her smile faded, the corners sinking downwards slowly. "The Sacred Realm can't be fixed by sapling trees. It's going to take a lot of work to save this place, and I can't do it on my own. I'm too small."

Linkali crouched down and rested her hand on Saria's shoulder. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked. The little Sage's grin returned, blossoming like a flower blooming in fast forward. She wrinkled her nose playfully.

"You want to help?" she asked. "Let me see the Medallions, Lin." The Hylian obeyed, handing the pouch over to the small child. Saria dumped the Medallions into the palm of her hand and sifted through them. She selected one that was bright red, with the raised emblem of a flame on it, and ordered, "Bring me the Sage of Fire—Darunia's his name." She handed the Fire Medallion to Linkali and, after putting the others back into the pouch, handed that to her as well.

"Darunia," Lin repeated, tasting the unfamiliar name. Saria nodded.

"You see, when it comes to delicate control and use of power, I'm the one you want," she explained, indicating the tree she had recently resurrected. "But when it comes to brute strength and sheer amount of power, Darunia can't be beat. In terms of strength, I'm the weakest of the Sages; Darunia's the strongest, and I'm going to need his raw power if I'm going to do anything good here. Do you think you can break his seal and bring him here for me?"

"Of course," Linkali replied, nodding firmly. She glanced at her fairy partner, who had stayed silent thus far, and smiled. "If Navi's willing to help me, then there's nothing I can't do." The fairy glowed brightly with happiness. She looked back at Saria, who was nodding with approval.

"If anyone can help you, it'd be Navi," she told Lin. "I can't see him"—Linkali knew she meant the Sage of Fire—"but I can sense where he is. Let me find him for you." She closed her eyes for a few minutes and fell silent. After a bit, she opened her eyes again and spoke. "He's not in the Fire Temple; the mountain's so hot now, not even _he_ can survive in it. The Dodongo's Cavern—that's where you'll find him."

Linkali balked. "Wait…where's that?" she asked. She'd read about it in the story of the Hero, but she knew that there was no place in Hyrule nowadays with that name. Saria and Navi looked at each other briefly before turning their gazes to her.

"I'll show you," Navi told her, sounding a little confused.

"It's near Death Mountain," Saria added helpfully. Linkali nodded and glanced aside to hide the uncertainty welling up in her eyes. Death Mountain stood on the opposite end of Hyrule Field—the journey there would take her nearly all day, and that was if she didn't run into any kind of trouble. If she allowed a day looking for the Sage of Fire, and another day to travel home, that mean she would be away from Kokoria for at least three days. _I'm going to need a new alibi,_ she thought, hoping Zelda would be able to find a way to cover for her. She let the thought soothe her, and when she turned her gaze back to the others, her eyes were free of worry.

"Right, I'll have the Fire Sage back here as soon as I can," she promised. Saria's eyes lit up. "But first…how exactly do I get back to Hyrule?"

"Oh! Silly me!" Saria thumped her own forehead with the heel of her hand and giggled. "I'm pretty forgetful today, aren't I? That's easy. Do you have some kind of musical instrument on you?" Before Lin could answer yes or no, the Kokiri Sage was digging through her belt pouches earnestly. Seeds, nuts, Rupees, stones, and other small trinkets spilled out around her hands; like any child, it seemed, Saria couldn't leave anything interesting lying on the ground. "I think I _might_ have a second ocarina with me…" She pulled out a smooth, tan, egg-shaped piece of wood with a tiny green triangle inlaid beneath the mouthpiece; she studied it briefly and shook her head. "No, that one's mine. I could have _sworn_ I had a second one with me—I always keep a spare just in case I meet someone who wants to play but doesn't have an instrument." Saria held her ocarina out to Lin. "Here, would you hold onto this for me? I need to check my other pouches."

"Actually, I have something, Saria," Linkali told her, pulling the flute from under her mantle. Saria smiled happily and took back her ocarina.

"Fantastic! You know, that almost looks like the Ocarina of Time," she commented. "It's the same color—but it's a little smaller, and it doesn't have the seal around the mouthpiece." She shrugged lightheartedly. "At any rate, I can teach you a warping song that I think you'll find useful. Don't worry about forgetting it—I'm sure Navi can help you remember it." The girl winked at the blue creature. "Fairies have an excellent memory for music." With that, she sat down cross-legged on the grass, and motioned for Lin to do the same.

The Hylian youth lifted her own flute to her mouth while she listened. The song Saria played was bright and joyful, and she played it several times before motioning for Lin to join her. Linkali found the song to be rather easy to grasp (unlike the Song of Time, it did not seem to move in a continuous loop), and soon she was playing it to match the young Sage. The echoing notes of the two ocarinas rang out through the empty air of the Sacred Realm. It seemed as though they played for hours before Saria stopped. She grinned at the older girl.

"That song doesn't have a name yet," she informed Lin. "But even without one, its power is real. If you play that song here, in the Sacred Realm, it will take you back to Hyrule. At the same time, if you're in Hyrule when you play it, it will take you to the Sacred Realm." She clasped her ocarina to her heart happily. "Just remember, it uses our power—the power of the Sages—to move you around, so the sooner you get Darunia here, the easier it will be for you to travel back and forth. I'll be able to manage for now, though."

"Thanks," Linkali said. Saria nodded, pushing herself back onto her feet. She looked the young woman up and down critically for a moment.

"Lin, do you want to leave the Master Sword here, with me?" she queried. Linkali glanced at the sheathed blade behind her, remembering that it was there. "It'd be safe here. You wouldn't have to worry about keeping it hidden, or having to drag it around with you everywhere. It's still broken, right?" Lin nodded. "I'll look after it for you; it's really no use to you in its current state."

"That would be great, actually," Lin murmured as she undid the straps. She handed the blade to Saria, who needed both arms to hold and carry it. The Master Sword was almost as tall as the little Kokiri Sage! Still, she held it dutifully and respectfully. "Thank you."

"No problem!" Saria returned gleefully. "Now, remember—I want the Sage of Fire, Darunia, and he's in the Dodongo's Cavern. If you bring him back here, we can really get the Sacred Realm looking sacred again!" Linkali had to laugh at the pure, unbridled enthusiasm in the little girl's voice; she was reminded strongly of Talina. She stepped back and lifted her flute to her lips. Closing her eyes, she played the song she had just been taught, and felt a gentle force pushing around her, like gusts of spring wind. She lowered the instrument, keeping her eyes firmly closed until she felt her feet touch the ground again.

The sun had already set over Hyrule, and the western sky was a mass of purple-black clouds streaked with orange. Navi bobbed in front of Linkali's face, her blue glow shedding some light over the darkened field. Lin looked around, pointing to the gap in the rock wall nearby. "There's the entrance of my village," she told Navi.

"What is it called?" the fairy asked curiously.

"Kokoria," the youth replied.

"That's strange…it almost sounds a little like…"

"Kokiri." Linkali couldn't help a wry grin. "Yes, I was thinking that, too. As to whether or not there is any correlation between the two of them…I know someone who can answer that question." She paused. "In the mean time, though, I think it would be best if you hid. Most people think fairies have gone extinct; I don't want to know what could happen if anyone saw you." Navi zipped around behind the girl. "You could probably slip into my hood and dim your light."

"Done and done!" Navi replied cheerily. Linkali, who could not twist her head around like an owl, took the fairy at her word and started towards her village.

* * *

_Yes,_ Zelda wrote. _I did, in fact, take the name of this village from that of the Kokiri Forest as a way to honor Link's memory._

Linkali nodded, her suspicions confirmed. She and Navi were sitting across the table from the old Hylian at her home. (Well, Navi was seated on an overturned teacup.) Zelda, it seemed, had known they were coming, for dinner had been waiting for them as soon as they had knocked on the door. The two famished explorers had dug in eagerly; now that the meal was finished, the time to talk had come.

_It's wonderful to know that you've broken the seal on the first Sage, Lin,_ Zelda continued, and she smiled affectionately up at the youth. There was a glow of pride in her eyes, and also respect.

"It wasn't even that hard," Linkali told her, smiling a little. "I was expecting to have to fight off some evil monster before I could get to Saria…but all I really had to do was convince her that I wasn't going to hurt her."

"And the bow was easy to come by, too," Navi put in. "Thank Nayru those two Stalfos weren't there anymore." She looked over at Lin. "I don't know if you would have been able to take them down with just the Hookshot."

_So Saria asked you to break the seal on the Sage of Fire next?_ Zelda asked. Linkali nodded. _I think you will like Darunia. He is a very warm and caring individual, and the very definition of a gentle giant._

"Saria said we'd find him in some Cavern near Death Mountain," the youth pointed out. "The journey up there is going to take at least a day of travel on foot, and that's if everything goes well and I don't run into any trouble." Zelda nodded in agreement. "You said my parents didn't come looking for me this time, but I was only gone for one day. I think they fully expect me to sleep in my own bed when I'm 'working'"—she made air quotes—"for you, which means a trip to Death Mountain is all but impossible under that premise."

_I had thought about a problem like this one arising; I knew it would only be a matter of time,_ the former monarch wrote carefully. _Hyrule is a vast land, and the Sages scattered to all of its corners to escape Ganon. To find them will require a lot of travel. Fortunately, I had all of today to come up with several excuses that will buy you time to track down the Sages._ She smiled at Lin. _When you return home tonight, tell your parents that I wish to send you on an errand to Lonran tomorrow._

"Lonran, right," Linkali repeated, nodding to herself.

_Tell them you do not know how long you will be gone,_ Zelda continued. _Or estimate how much time you will need to locate the Fire Sage, and give them that number._ Linkali bobbed her head to the affirmative. Zelda sighed. _I do wish that I could send you with more than just Navi in your company—the land is unpredictable, and there is really no way for us to communicate, so I will not know that you are safe until I see you again with my own two eyes._ She set down her quill briefly and massaged her temples. After a quick sigh, she began to write again. _If things __do__ get dangerous, I trust that you will seek shelter at Lonran._

"If I can feasibly make it there," Linkali replied. Zelda nodded.

_They will help you if you need them to,_ she inscribed. _But, again, your true mission must remain a secret to everyone. If the people of Lonran ask why you are traveling Hyrule Field alone, you will not be able to tell them the real reason why._

"I know."

_You look rather tired._ Zelda smiled as Lin smothered a yawn upon reading those four words. _Why don't you go home, Lin? _

"I think I should. Thank you for feeding me—both lunch and dinner." Linkali glanced at the fairy perched nimbly on the teacup. "Navi, are you coming home with me, or would you rather spend the night catching up with Zelda?"

"You and I are partners now," Navi replied, planting her hands on her hips. She floated up into the air and bobbed around the girl's head. "Where you go, Lin, I go. Besides, from the look of things, there's not a thing to 'catch up' on. She started a village, and I spent one-hundred and fifty years hiding in a forest." She and Linkali both looked back at Zelda, for the old woman had rapped her knuckles against the table to gain their attention once more. She had written further instructions.

_If your parents do not want you to "run errands" for me on your own, ask them to speak with me and I will help convince them._

"I will," the youth promised, wondering if it would come to that. By Hylian standards, her parents were fairly lax in their protection of their daughters, and they had great confidence in their eldest. Unlike most children her age, Talina could go just about anywhere she wanted. She just had to be with Linkali at all times—thus making her older sister the only thing standing between Tali and the dangers of Hyrule. Even if they didn't know about the Hookshot and Bow, Lin's parents would probably be comfortable letting their older daughter leave the village by herself. (Although she expected some amount of resistance to come from her father.)

_Stop in and see me before you leave tomorrow,_ the former monarch added. _Both to keep up appearances, and so that I can help you plot out the safest course._ She pointed at Navi, indicating that her next words were directed at the fairy. _Much has changed since you last explored Hyrule with a young warrior; there are a few things that you should be aware of, but I think they are best left until tomorrow._

Navi nodded. "Of course, Pri—Zelda," she said, catching herself mid-word as the old woman gave her a rather frustrated glare. Zelda looked back at Linkali, nodding to signal the young Hylian that they were finished for the night. Lin returned the nod and gathered up all of her belongings. Navi hummed up and nestled herself against the girl's neck, hiding herself under the wide green collar of her mantle and dimming her glow. Zelda followed them to the door, where she embraced Linkali tightly before the youth left. Her hand and her heart warm, Linkali stepped out into the darkened village and headed for home.

* * *

"Three days for just one trip to Lonran?" Halvara echoed, her brow wrinkling in both suspicion and confusion. "Lin, that seems a bit much to me."

"It isn't three days for _travel_, Mom," Linkali reminded her gently, flipping one hand palm-up on the tabletop as she reasoned with her parents. "It's three days to travel, _and _do what Aldez needs me to do, _and_ come back to Kokoria." Halvara nodded slowly as the young woman's explanation soothed some of her anxieties.

"Is it an escort mission?" Hatoren asked curiously. Lin shook her head. "So you'll be traveling alone." He sighed as his daughter nodded in agreement. "I'm not sure I like this idea all that much. I'd be happier if I were to go with you, if only to ensure you arrived safely."

"Lonran isn't that far from our village. If I left around sunrise, I could be there by noon. Monsters don't usually come out in the daytime, remember."

Hatoren's thick eyebrows pushed together, and for a moment Linkali wondered if she had been too casual in assuaging his fears. Nayru knows, the big Hylian would be the harder of her parents to convince. He was as proud and protective of his two daughters as most men were of their cherished sons; he would never allow either of them to do anything he deemed unsafe. But before Linkali could open her mouth to support her case, Halvara reached over the table and wrapped her hand around her husband's.

"Tor," she said softly, her warm, brown eyes snaring his icy blue. "Lin's almost eighteen; she's a confident, capable young woman with a solid head on her shoulders. Now—you _are_ her father, and my husband, and the head of this household. If you truly believe that it is unsafe for our daughter to go on this journey to Lonran alone, and if you would rather her be accompanied, then I will not stand against you. But as for me, I believe that Lin will be safe and will arrive at her destination unharmed."

Hatoren glanced away from his wife. He was silent for a few minutes, thinking everything over thoroughly before he made his final decision. He licked his lips, chewed the lower one, and sighed softly. Then, the burly Hylian turned his eyes back to the youth sitting before him. He smiled gruffly. "I see that look of triumph," he told her. Linkali pressed her lips together; for a second, she thought she had been grinning, but it didn't take her long to realize what her father had been referring to. She dropped her gaze to her lap. "Yes, your eyes. You know just as well as I do that I have trouble turning your mother down." He shook his head and chuckled. "Very well, Lin—I'll let you go on this errand for Aldez. I suppose it's just one more way we can thank her for all of the kindness she's shown you recently."

"Thank you," Lin said, raising her eyes and smiling broadly. Hatoren pushed himself up from the table.

"I'll be awake at dawn to see you off," he told her. "But first, there's something I need to give you, especially since you'll be going it alone." He flicked his hand for her to follow. As she walked down the dark hallway, Linkali glanced nervously at the small patch of soft light that was visible near her collarbone, a glow of blue against the green fabric.

"Careful," she hissed in the barest of whispers. "I can see you…"

"What?" Hatoren turned over his shoulder to glance at her curiously. Linkali grinned back at him.

"Nothing," she replied innocently. "Just…making sure something wasn't forgotten." Her father shrugged and turned back around again. Lin shot a worried look at her shoulder, and was relieved to see that the pale glow was gone. Navi seemed to have gotten the idea, which came as a great relief. The Hylian girl twitched with shock and froze for a moment as the fairy's voice whispered in the back of her mind:

_Can you hear me if I speak to you this way? If you can, just think your answer back to me._

_Like this?_ Linkali thought, struggling not to glance at the place where she knew her fairy friend was hiding.

_Perfect! I can hear you very clearly,_ Navi replied. _I'm sorry; I forgot myself for a moment. I'll be more careful about how brightly I let my light shine. Where is he leading you?_

_His and my mother's room, it looks like._ Lin frowned. _I don't know what he could want, though._

_He said he had something to give you,_ the fairy reminded her. Linkali nodded in agreement and waited in the doorway while her father lit one of the lamps beside his and his wife's bed. Handing it off to his daughter, Hatoren walked over to the chest that sat at the foot of the bed and knelt down in front of it.

"I almost wish I could tell you that this sword has been passed down through our family for generations, and is a truly valuable heirloom," he said, grinning wryly up at her. "But if I did that, I'd be lying to you. The smith made it for me to replace the one that you and Bartal broke a few months ago." Linkali felt heat rise into her cheeks, and found herself wishing that Navi would not ask for an explanation of the reference. It was not something she enjoyed remembering, though it had been fun at the time. (Paying her father two-hundred Rupees to replace his blade, however, had _not_ been fun.) "I'm still not entirely sure _how_ you two managed to break the sword both down the middle _and_ along the blade—and so many times. Not to mention the fact that the crossguard was bent into a perfect half-circle." Lin bit her lip; she wasn't _wishing_ that the fairy wouldn't ask to be further briefed, she was _praying_ now. Hatoren smiled at his daughter, clearly amused at how embarrassed she was. "But, since you were the one who fronted the Rupees for the replacement sword, I guess one could argue that this actually belongs to you.

_So it isn't an heirloom,_ Navi said. _But judging from what he's said so far, it sounds like the story behind it gives it the potential to _become_ one. How exactly—_

_None of your damn business,_ Linkali fired back swiftly, still flushing furiously. She flinched as she felt a sharp, hot pain stab into the skin over her collarbone. The sensation, as intense as it was, was gone just as instantly as it had appeared and no pain lingered, leading Lin to wonder what exactly the fairy had done to her. It didn't matter. She wasn't about to tell the story, as much as she liked Navi.

Hatoren pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and held the sword out to Linkali. It was a longsword, visibly shorter than the Master Sword and sheathed in a nondescript scabbard. Lin let her fingers float lightly over the hilt and grip, which was wrapped in plain, but soft and supple, brown leather. She pulled the sword from the sheath, and let out a gasp of surprise at the blade that had been hiding. Perhaps it was because she was comparing it to the Hero's sword, or perhaps it was because it had not been used since its forging, but the blade of Linkali's new sword seemed to gleam brightly in the lamplight. Setting the scabbard down gently, the Hylian youth ran her hand over the smoothly beveled foible, sliding her index finger down the blood-groove.

"You've already gotten the feel for a sword," Hatoren continued, "working at the end of the harvest and the like." Though he did not say it, Linkali knew that he was thinking, just as she was, _And during the training drills with HyReCo._ The youth nodded in agreement as she sheathed the sword.

"I'll be careful; I promise," she told him. "But if it should come to that, I'll use the sword."

* * *

The mountain stone was a beautiful, vibrant shade of red-brown, so warmed by the sun that the air just about the ground seemed to wriggle and dance like water stroked by wind. A few twisted, stunted shrubs—their wizened branches clinging stubbornly to scatterings of pale, gray-green leaves—poked out from chinks in the rock. At the edge of the ridge where Linkali found herself standing, there stood a lone tree with scabby, black bark; it was slightly taller than she was, with a single thick bough that jutted out over the cliff-like lip of the rise and a thin collection of whispering leaves that cast scant shade on the ground before the girl. The cloudless sky overhead was a shade of blue so brilliant that it almost seemed alive; the hot sun that sat at the midday point seemed to have bleached the area around it, so that it was surrounded by near-white sky. Cicada calls burred through the air, sounding tinny and distant.

Lin walked towards the edge of the ridge, heading for the cool shade that seemed to be calling out to her. The silent air was hot and dry, and she wanted nothing more than to escape the beaming sunlight. The leaves rustled together all the more when Linkali drew near, though there was no wind on the mountain to stir them. She laid the palm of her hand against the flaking bark of the tree, listening to it crackle at her touch, and feeling it peel and crumble under her fingers. With a crunching rustle, the Hylian youth leaned back against the tree and folded her arms over her chest in thought. As real as the sun and stone felt, she knew it had to be another dream.

"Lin!"

Linkali jerked forward, twisting her head in the direction of the call, and was surprised to see the Warrior's Spirit standing at the bottom of the high ridge where she was. He was wearing all of his armor, despite the heat, and bright darts of light glinted off of the plates as he waved up at her. When he saw that he had the girl's attention, he changed his wave to a beckoning motion, summoning her down to his side. Lin hesitated, glancing down the side of the cliff warily. Spurs of rock and redstone ledges jutted out all down the escarpment.

Reasoning that dying or breaking a limb in a _dream_ couldn't possibly hurt her in the waking world, the Hylian girl took one last calculating look at the stone spurs and lunged for the first. She landed lightly in a low crouch on the sun-heated surface, sliding a little as the top layer of grit on the grainy sandstone was rubbed away. Linkali pushed herself up a little straighter and rocked back on her heels to get her hands away from the scorching-hot stone. She balanced herself carefully, eyes seeking her next leap, and made her second jump. Her heart was racing excitedly in her chest and the adrenaline rush started to build; Lin imagined that Bartal would have great fun doing this sort of thing. With catlike leaps and smooth turns, the young woman worked her way down the face of the cliff at whose foot the patient, armored Spirit stood. Twice, she nearly slipped and fell. Both times a chilly jolt of fear was sent pumping through her that chased away even the heat of the sun for a moment; both times, she chided herself for thinking she was in any real danger. (Although it _was_ easy to forget one was dreaming when the world around one felt so _real_.)

When Linkali reached his side, the Warrior's Spirit nodded his approval. "Well done," he praised, then indicated to the side of the ridge that Lin had not taken the time to look over. The girl wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan when she saw the rope ladder dangling there. "You could have had an easier time of it," the Spirit pointed out gently, though his tone of voice suggested that he somewhat admired Linkali's audacity in scaling the rock wall for herself. "I am glad to see you, Lin."

"I wasn't expecting to see you again," the Hylian told him honestly. Then, she thought back briefly to the first time she had met him, in the empty plain, and remembered what he had told her of himself—little though it was. _I am a gentle guide, a helpful voice. _Maybe she _should_ have expected to see him a second time. "I think I know what lies ahead of me…or is there something else you wanted to tell me about?"

"You recently obtained a bow in the Forest Temple," the Warrior's Spirit replied, "but you have not yet had the opportunity to practice with it. I would like to help you and share with you what _I_ know of bowmanship." He lifted a longbow in his left hand; Linkali would have sworn before gods and everyone that he hadn't been holding it before now.

"I would appreciate that," the girl said respectfully. Surreptitiously and without actually looking, she felt around her belt for the Fairy Bow; as far as she could tell, it wasn't there. She said nothing of this to the Spirit, though. "Thank you."

"Come with me," the Spirit ordered gently. He turned and led the way beside the ridge, a path which sloped down into a deep-cut canyon in the rock. Linkali followed, walking behind him in the shadow of another mountain ridge. The glare from the sun lessened tremendously once she stepped into the gorge, and the shaded redstone was cool to the touch. The sound of boots echoed hollowly off the walls of stone, the sounds redoubling over themselves so that it almost sounded like more than two people were walking through.

"Where are we going?" Lin asked, twitching her ears at the sound of her voice bouncing off the canyon's flanks. When the Warrior's Spirit answered her, his deeper voice seemed to swallow the fading echoes of her higher, female one.

"To an archery range, so that you may practice shooting your bow."

Linkali checked her person a little more thoroughly this time, figuring she didn't have to be as sneaky now that the Spirit's back was to her. She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. She still didn't have a bow with her, although the man walking ahead of her seemed to believe that she did. Was he simply having trouble seeing through his visor? Or did he know something she didn't know?

The canyon was long, but Lin did not mind walking through the shaded place; it was certainly a refreshing change from the harsh, naked heat of the direct sunlight they'd been in before. It widened at the end, opening up into a spreading patch of open ground surrounded on the canyon-side half by rock walls. The cries of cicadas, which had dropped off completely when the two Hylians had entered the canyon, returned (though they continued to sound far-off and strangely metallic); a few scattered birdsongs also rang out from time to time, their notes flickering like a candle-flame. Linkali gazed around, her eyes bright with curiosity.

Perhaps the first thing that struck her was the realization that the sunlight was less intense here, and that the air was somewhat cooler than the stark heat on the opposite end of the gorge—all this, despite the fact that this place was almost as open to the sky as the mountainside had been. The open area was ringed with trees, oddly enough. Unlike the scabbed, half-bald loner atop the first ridge where Lin had found herself, these trees were tall and proud, with thick coats of sage-green leaves that dappled the edges of the ground with shifting shadow; they almost seemed to be sprouting from the red rock itself, twisting their roots into the very mountain. The emerald-green shade behind them suggested that an entire forest occupied this piece of the mountain. In front of the trees, though, at the far edge of the ground, stood a series of targets—bull's-eyes—at varying heights.

The Warrior's Spirit turned around to face Linkali, and the girl got the sense that he was smiling underneath his visor. He gestured one gauntleted hand towards the targets. "If you are ready, Lin, I will begin the lesson," he told her kindly.

"That's just the thing," Lin began, setting her hand on her right hip. "I don't h—"

She stopped there, her mouth hanging open just the slightest degree. With a small shiver, the youth looked down at what her hand had rested upon. A leather strap around her belt, which was attached to a quiver of arrows. On a reflex, Linkali clenched her left fist warily, and was doubly shocked when she found that something was preventing her from closing her hand entirely. She lifted that hand in front of her face, blinking in stunned silence.

How long had she been holding the Fairy Bow?

Linkali stared at the bow in her grasp, her mind reeling with confusion. She couldn't recall feeling anything unusual before now—no sudden weight, no strange sensations, nothing to suggest that a weapon had suddenly materialized in her hand. The same story went for the quiver; Lin could feel its weight on her hip now, but it almost seemed to her that she had been feeling it all along, ever since she'd entered this dream. _But I hadn't_, she thought suspiciously. _I checked—twice—and never found either bow or quiver._ Her eyes' focus shifted from the Fairy Bow to the Warrior's Spirit, who stood before her as patient as ever.

"Is anything the matter?" he asked.

Lin stood stock-still and held her breath for a few seconds, blinking silently at the armored man. Finally, she lowered the hand holding her bow and released her breath quietly. "No," she answered, shaking her head. "Everything's fine."

"That's good to know." The Warrior's Spirit motioned for her to set her bow down on a flat-topped rock beside her, and leaned his bow against the wall of the clearing. He walked until he stood just behind her and to the right. "Before we begin, though, it is wise to determine your dominant eye." He pointed to the largest of the targets. "Focus your gaze on that target, and bring your hands in front of your face like this." He held out his own two hands, fingers pointing in at an angle of roughly forty-five degrees; his fingers and thumbs overlapped at the top and bottom, forming a gap that was roughly the shape of a triangle. "Look through the gap in your fingers at the target."

Linkali obeyed, curious as to what he meant when he said 'determine your dominant eye.' She'd heard of dominant hands, but never eyes. The Spirit stepped away from her, nodding to himself. "As I thought—you are just like me. That will make this much easier." He paused. "You may lower your hands if you wish, Lin. Your left eye is dominant."

"What does that mean?" Lin asked, still holding her hands in front of her. "And how can you tell?"

"Let me see if I can explain this to you without confusing either of us," he murmured, one hand sneaking under his visor to rub thoughtfully at his chin. "Both of your eyes do not see perfectly straight; one of them is actually angled slightly inwards. This angling is what allows you to judge depths and to see the world as being dimensional, rather than flat. The eye that is not shifted inwards is your dominant eye—like your dominant hand, it is the stronger of the two. When left to judge distances on its own, it is the more accurate of the two eyes." He chuckled softly as the girl nodded her understanding. "As for how I can tell…See for yourself. Look at the placement of your hands instead of the target."

The young Hylian shifted her gaze back to her hands, gasping softly in surprise. The triangle formed by the gap between her overlapping hands was centered on the target—and directly in front of her left eye!** (1)** She turned to the Spirit with a grin.

"Now that we have this knowledge, I think it is safe to begin," he said, nodding at the Fairy Bow. Linkali grabbed it, eager to learn. She'd seen some members of HyReCo practicing archery, and had always had some degree of interest in it—but she had focused her energies on swordsmanship instead. "Take the bow in your right hand—yes, on that grip. Line your body up with a target, and set your feet at shoulders' width. Good. Standing this way, your dominant eye will be lined up with the shaft and its flight will be truer." He nodded his approval at her stance. "Take an arrow from your quiver and set it against the string. No, don't lift your bow yet."

Lin followed his orders and waited patiently while the man gently adjusted her grip on the end of the arrow. He set her index finger above the shaft, with her middle and ring fingers below it. "Do you notice how two of the three vanes—the fletching feathers—on the arrow are in line with the bowstring, while the third points away? That is important to remember for the future. You will be pulling back with this arm—not yet," he added as the youth's muscles tensed with readiness. He chuckled softly as he took a step back. "At least you're eager. Now, raise your bow. Try to do it in a smooth motion." The Warrior's Spirit nodded as Linkali obeyed. He stepped back towards her and adjusted her arms slightly. "Resist the temptation to angle the bow to the side. You might think it looks appropriate, but it isn't. You must keep your bow vertical when firing."

After he was satisfied with Linkali's grip and stance, the Spirit stepped back again. "You are ready to fire now," he informed her. "Draw back on the string until your hand aligns with the corner of your mouth. _Don't_ tilt your bow, Lin—remember what I told you." The girl straightened her arm a little sheepishly. "Sight along the shaft of the arrow; aim for the center of the target, and keep both eyes open." He paused while Lin finished pulling back. "When you feel that you have aligned the arrow with the target, relax your fingers and release the shot, breathing out as you do."

Linkali aimed carefully at the same target the Spirit had used to find her dominant eye. For a moment, she was tempted to close her right eye; after all, if what her teacher had said was true, and the other eye _was_ angled inwards, the different image it showed might impair her aim. But the Warrior's Spirit had told her specifically to keep both of her eyes open, and Lin wasn't about to go against the advice of someone as clearly knowledgeable as he was. She drew in her breath, held it, made one last correction to the arrow's alignment, and released both her breath and her shot. The arrow whistled through the air to land with a dull _thud_ midway between the center and edge of the target. "Hah! Look at that!" its archer exalted proudly.

"An excellent first shot," the Spirit congratulated, clapping Linkali on the shoulder warmly. He walked down the range and retrieved it, and returned slapping it lightly against the palm of his hand. "Or was it perhaps beginner's luck?"

"That was _not_ beginner's luck!" Lin retorted cheekily, stamping a foot against the ground in mock irritation. The armored Spirit drew back just slightly and paused in his palm-slapping; the girl sensed a smile spreading across his hidden face.

"Then prove it to me," he told her in a voice that was both completely serious and totally amused.

Linkali held out her hand. "Lucky arrow?" she asked. The words were out of her mouth before she could stop to think about their implications. She hoped the Spirit would not notice the irony in her request; her hope was in vain.

"Did you not just say that you wanted to prove that the accuracy of your shot was _not_ due to luck?" he queried; his voice was full of nothing but amusement now. He continued slapping the arrow against his palm gently. "Come, Lin—I know you're capable."

The second shot, and three more just like it, missed the target by varying margins—with the vanes of the fifth grazing the bulls-eye's edge as it flew past. Linkali scowled impatiently, angered by the realization that she was now proving that her first shot _had_ landed by sheer dumb luck. Her sixth shot, fired from a bowstring that was yanked back savagely, sang across the ground to land fairly close to the middle of the target. Lin sighed with relief, just glad that she had managed to hit the target a second time.

The Warrior's Spirit allowed her to run through her quiver before he set off to retrieve the arrows. Linkali followed after him to help find them. "You are improving swiftly," he told her, tugging an arrow from the bark of a tree, "far faster than I would have thought. Perhaps I will not have to wait for another night to teach you…"

"Teach me what?" Lin asked curiously. The Spirit turned to her.

"Your quest will lead you to fight against the very source of the darkness itself," he explained calmly. "And when that day comes, your arrows alone will not be enough to subdue it. You will need to be able to fire the mythical Light Arrows."

"I can't," Linkali blurted out. The armored warrior was silent, and Lin got the feeling he was skeptical. "N-no one in Hyrule can. Spirit, I've read about Light Arrows—you need _magic_ to create them. Hylians can't _use_ magic. The Evil King placed a ban on its practice when he began his reign, and as the years have gone by, we as a people have lost any ability to use it." She held up her hands helplessly as the man folded his arms over his armor-plated chest. "It's true. I…I've heard of people trying to use magic; all of them failed." HyReCo had once tested all of its new members to see if they had any magical potential; the practice was stopped before Lin had joined, when the leaders realized that having a magic-wielder was an impossible dream. "No one can…not anymore."

"I think that the Triforce of Courage imparts some degree of magical proficiency to its bearer," the Warrior's Spirit said. The way he said it suggested that he did not _think_, but rather that he _knew_. "Have _you_ ever tried casting magic?"

"I wouldn't even know how to begin," Linkali muttered, flipping her hands up in the air before letting them flop down hopelessly. The Spirit rested a gentle hand on her shoulder; glancing out of the corner of her eye, Lin saw herself reflected in miniature on each of the golden plates of his gauntlet. She shifted her gaze up to the visor that covered the man's face and saw another, fractured reflection of her own face.

"I will show you," he promised. "Let us return to the range."

"But we haven't found all of the—" Linkali swallowed the word 'arrows' as she realized that the five shafts in hers and the Spirit's hands had somehow multiplied to twenty-five, the exact number that had filled her quiver earlier. (Or had they always been holding that many and she just hadn't been paying attention?) Pushing aside her confusion, the Hylian youth followed the armored man back to the firing range. She drew an arrow at his order, and waited for further instruction.

The Warrior's Spirit stepped closer to her, lining his feet with hers so that their stances interlocked. He placed his hands over hers on the bow, drawing it back in perfect synchrony with her. Linkali could feel the sun-warmed plates of his armor pressing lightly against her back and the calluses on his hands rough against her own, could hear the Spirit's calm breathing, could smell the faint odor of sweat that rose from them both. For a moment, she felt a strange connection with the warrior, as if she and he were one and the same; their spirits were two pieces of a whole, and they were joined by something far greater than she could ever understand. "Close your eyes," the Spirit whispered in her ear, and Lin obeyed as if the order had come from her own mind. "Breathe deeply. Focus on the power and Light that lie within you. Bring them up from your heart and let them flow through your fingertips."

Linkali felt herself reach down inside; it almost felt as if the Warrior's Spirit were helping her, guiding her arm, reaching with her. A golden glow began to burn in front of the girl's closed eyelids, and she knew that she had found the Light that the Spirit had told her lay within. She heard the man's gentle voice in her ear again. "Open your eyes, Lin," he commanded softly. Linkali snapped her eyes open and was startled to see that the glow she had seen was not only internal.

Golden light surrounded the shaft and point of her arrow, visible even in the sunlight. The youth could feel a power humming in her hands, singing in her veins; its song as mystical, its rhythm unbelievable. She turned her head just slightly and caught a glimpse of smiling lips and a strong, sure jawline underneath the gaps in the Spirit's visor, features made seeable by the light from her arrow. "Now fire," the man ordered. Linkali turned back to the target, her heart bounding in her chest to the time of the ancient song in her blood. Her eyes narrowed a few degrees; she sighted along the shaft and released the Light Arrow from her bow. The arrow thudded sharply, dead center, in the bull's-eye.

With the release of the shot, the powerful feelings left Linkali's body, though their memory remained in her heart and blood. She turned to the Warrior's Spirit, who stepped away from her smoothly. "The next time you want to create a Light Arrow, you will be able to do it without my assistance," he told her. "Now that your magical potential has been awakened, you should be able to master other skills as well. I advise you to practice creating Light Arrows; you will only grow swifter and more proficient when dealing with magic."

"Magic," Linkali echoed in a whisper. Was _that_ what she had felt? Then it was true—she _was_ able to use the Hylian's lost power! Her blue eyes jolted open wide. "Spirit, I can't thank you enough…"

"It is not necessary," the man returned with a gentle wave. "My only thanks is seeing you becoming a competent warrior." He took her hand in both of his, and the sunny mountain clearing faded into darkness. "Take care, Lin." With that, he released his grip on the girl, and Linkali found herself falling backwards into sleep.

* * *

"Is that a trail up ahead?" Navi asked, flitting a few feet closer to the dark gap in the rock wall before zipping back to Lin's side. The young Hylian nodded. "Why are we headed there? The entrance to Kakariko Village is to the right of it a bit. We could spend the night there."

"I'd rather avoid Kakariko," Linkali answered, "especially now that it's dark out." Navi glanced in the direction of the old village gates, clearly confused as to why the girl was refusing such easy shelter, and turned back. "Besides," Lin added, hoping to convince her fairy partner, "once we make it off the Field, the threat of a monster attack drops down to virtually zero."

"Can you make it that far?" Navi queried, hovering closer to the girl's face in concern. "You didn't take much time to rest on the journey, Lin. I don't want you to run yourself ragged before we even get to the Cavern."

"I'll be able to do it," Linkali assured her. The youth's feet were on fire, and her legs were tired and sore; her shoulder ached from the pack-strap biting into it, despite the fact that she had switched the load from shoulder to shoulder periodically while trekking. "Anyway, I feel just fine. You have nothing to worry about, Navi."

The journey across Hyrule Field had gone well for Linkali and Navi. They had made excellent progress with little interruption. A handful of Stalchilds tried to harass them early on, before the morning light truly struck Hyrule, but it didn't take more that a well-aimed punch from the Hookshot for them to get the point **(2)**; aside from that, there had been no monsters, not even as the sun went down. Now the darkness of night covered the land, and the two travelers were approaching their destination with Navi's light to guide them. It had been a long day of journeying, and the young Hylian was glad that it was almost over.

Lin clapped her hand against the stone side of the trailhead when she reached it, leaning against it just slightly to relieve some of the weight on her hurting feet without alerting Navi to her discomfort. Fortunately, the fairy seemed a bit distracted by the mountain trail. "I don't remember this pass being here," she said, humming around it with interest. "But, then again, a lot of Hyrule seems to have changed over the years." She sighed. "I just hope the Gorons have survived Ganon's reign."

_Probably not, since I haven't heard of them,_ Linkali thought, though she didn't dare relay the words to Navi. _I really should ask what a Goron is, since their race seems to come up frequently enough._ Before she could open her mouth to speak, though, the girl heard a scuffling, scratching sound behind her that could only mean the emergence of more Stalchilds. She saw Navi flash yellow out of the corner of her eyes and bolted up the mountain trail, knowing that the clattering skeletons would not follow her there. Her fairy friend balked for a moment longer before streaking after her.

Lin stopped running at the end of the thin mountain pass, where the ground suddenly opened up into a gaping canyon. The high, rocky jaws of the gorge seemed to stretch all the way to the silver-smeared, cloudy sky. Boulders lined the sides of the wide gorge, black masses in the dappled, white glow of the moonlight. Linkali stepped wonderingly out into the canyon, suddenly feeling very, very small and a little insignificant. _This_ was what she loved about her task of unsealing the Sages: The freedom it gave her to explore places like this, to see the sights that she was sure no one else in Hyrule would see. She tipped her head back, gazing around at the rearing flanks of the canyon. The girl lost the nagging cramps in her legs in the numbing awe that the mountain pass instilled in her; she'd never imagined a place like this could exist, outside of perhaps dreams.

_Dreams…_Linkali frowned slightly, dropping her head a little lower. She glanced from side to side at the shadow-flecked sides of the gorge and chewed her lower lip meditatively. _Dreams…This place _does_ almost look like it belongs in a dream._ She shrugged the thought aside and indicated a good-sized hollow on the right side of the canyon. "That looks like a good place for us to shelter the night," she told Navi. And with that, Lin walked over to the small hole, which went back fairly deep in the rock wall, and carefully backed herself into it. She fumbled around for a minute or two, struggling to curl herself up comfortably in the cramped space, which was smaller than it had first appeared. The fairy outside watched curiously, entering the space when Linkali flicked her hand invitingly.

"It doesn't look terribly comfortable to me," Navi muttered as she settled down on the Hylian youth's chest. Lin shrugged.

"It's better than sleeping out in the open, if you ask me," she replied, wriggling her shoulders a little in an attempt to get away from a spur of stone that was prodding her in the back. "It's only for the night, anyway." She covered a yawn with the back of her hand. "Sleep well, Navi."

"Good night, Lin."

**(1)This is, by the way, a legit test that an archery teacher used on me when I went to the range for the first time. I'm right-eyed, apparently. Right-eyed, right-handed, and left-footed (I jump over hurdles with my left leg first, and step forward with my left foot when pushed unexpectedly from behind).**

**(2)Horrendous pun! I had to do it.**


	14. 13: Darrun, Sage of Fire

**To those who have added this to their Alerts: I would love feedback! Please, don't be shy—I'm a nice person, I swear! =)**

The mountain air was cool and quiet beneath the dark gray sky when Linkali opened her eyes. The young Hylian was sore and stiff, both from her long trek up to Death Mountain and from her night spent cramped in the hollow. She could smell rain in the air, and wanted to close her eyes and drift back to sleep. Navi wasn't even awake yet, so she could have gotten away with it. Lin smothered a sigh as she halfheartedly tapped the slumbering fairy's back. "Navi?" she murmured.

Navi stretched and rolled over onto her side on the girl's chest, blinking mildly at the empty mountain gorge outside their sheltered nook. Her head tipped back slightly as her gaze shifted towards the lumpy-gray clouds above them. "Miserable weather," she commented sleepily. "Good thing we're going to be spending the day inside the Dodongo's Cavern. It's probably warmer in there than anywhere else, and if it starts to rain, we'll be dry."

After the drowsy pair fed themselves, they set off through the remainder of the gorge, which Navi had informed Linkali was the Death Mountain Trail. The Dodongo's Cavern was just ahead, the fairy said; though she would have loved to check in on the Gorons who lived a bit higher up on the mountainside, the Sage of Fire would not be there. Lin listened to this chatter with half an ear, her mind focused more on other things than Navi's reminiscing. Like her legs, which were driven through with painful, jagged cramps; her shoulders, which were unbearably tense; and the aching throb had started up behind her eyes as a result of her poor sleep the previous night.

The walk was steep, but relatively short, and before long, Linkali found herself standing in front of a looming, gaping mouth in the gray-brown rock of Death Mountain. The darkness inside was tinted with a rich, almost bloody, scarlet light; wave after wave of pure heat rolled out like hot breath, soaking into the girl's skin and clothing. Straining her ears, Lin swore she could hear rumbling, hissing sounds coming from the darkness of the cave. Navi flickered ahead briefly to investigate the area before darting back to her companion's side. "I don't remember it being so…hot," the fairy said at length. "The last time we were here, it was warm, but not _this_ warm."

"The mountain's under a lot of pressure." Linkali indicated the leaden-looking cloud that circled the peak of Death Mountain. "People say it's been looking ready to erupt for ages, but it never has."

"It's almost as hot as the Fire Temple," Navi murmured as Lin began to walk ahead. The fairy bobbed alongside her Hylian partner. "Lin, I think we should be careful in this place."

"That goes without saying," Linkali muttered, stepping into a rolling wave of hot air from the cavern's black heart. It drenched her, weighed heavily on her lungs. "You call this the Dodongo's Cavern, but I've always heard it referred to as the Rogons' Cavern. Have you ever seen a Rogon before, Navi?" The fairy shook her head. "Well, neither have I, actually. I've only heard them described. But they're not the kind of monsters you want to run into, I've heard."

The Hylian youth would have gone into more detail, perhaps repeating the beasts' description, but two things stopped her. The first was the fact that they were now nearing the end of the dark passageway, and were stepping into Rogon territory. The second was that she was finding it somewhat difficult to breathe the scorching-hot air around her, and figured she should save her breath for walking rather than talking. Linkali felt a prickle beginning to build along her forehead, and knew that she would shortly break into a sweat. After being in the passage for less than a minute. _Farore!_ she thought vehemently. _It _is_ hot here…_

The Dodongo's—or Rogons'; Lin wasn't sure which name to use—Cavern opened up into a massive, high-domed chamber tinted with reddish light. Pools of stagnant lava lay strewn about the ground, as if waiting for a careless traveler to stumble into their sticky, fiery grasp. Linkali slowed to a stop at the edge of the room, wavering just slightly as she stood. She drew the back of one arm across her glistening forehead, letting out her shallow breath in a huffy sigh, and shifted from foot to foot. Before the girl, anchored in the slowly seeping lava, were several stone formations separated by gaps that looked small enough to jump. Lin's blue eyes darted between the gaps, eyeing them in a calculating way; she followed the possible paths with her gaze, and mouthed silently to herself as she tried to decide which one to take.

The youth decided on the path to the right—a hop to the central platform, followed by a skip to the rising column of stone and a jump to the ground on the other side. Linkali lifted one foot in the direction of the first leap and, with a quiet gasp, staggered for balance like a drunk. Her light, panting breathing picked up as she held out her arms to the sides to steady herself. She blinked rapidly several times, startled and a little worried by her near-loss of balance. Was the heat _already_ starting to affect her? Navi zipped around her anxiously. Linkali held out one hand to still the frantic fairy, pushing it through the air a couple of times to silently assure her friend that she would be all right. The winged ball of blue light settled down on her shoulder, and Navi's soft voice whispered concernedly. "I'm fine," Lin muttered as loudly as she dared, her eyes sweeping the shadows for any beasts lying in wait. A slight glassiness was starting to steal over them, dulling the intensity of her stare.

After a few tense moments, the girl took a step towards the platform, and another, and another. She stopped after an attempt at a fourth nearly caused her to lose her balance again. Linkali froze, wobbling, and waited for the dizziness to pass. She could feel the sweat trickling down the back of her neck now, soaking into her mantle and undershirt. Her breathing was growing more labored as the hot air of the Cavern rested heavily in her lungs. Navi said gently that she thought it wise to turn back, to leave the Cavern before something bad happened. "Fine," Lin mumbled, and she thought it sounded as if her own voice were coming from far away. "I'm…fine." She sighed breathlessly, shaking her head weakly to try and clear it. _This place…it's hotter than Din's anger…_

Linkali's eyelids were growing heavy, and she was finding it harder and harder to keep her eyes focused. The crimson-dark cavern seemed to blur and sharpen many times, fading in and out of focus. The hot air was burning her lungs, and she breathed as lightly as possible to minimize the amount that she took in. Lin stepped once, and swayed on her feet so badly that she wound up staggering for balance and taking several clumsy steps just to stay upright. The cold shock that bolted through her veins like winter lightning cleared her head for an instant. The Hylian girl gave voice to a ragged gasp that seemed to echo through the stone chamber; the glazed look left her eyes for a second, and they focused on the central platform with a fearful sharpness.

Then, just as quickly as it had gripped her, the sudden burst of clarity left. Linkali felt the raw heat of the Cavern steal that mind-clearing chill from her brain, melting it away and returning her to her previous state. Her dark eyes slipped out of focus, and they roved sluggishly over the platforms ahead. It was a struggle to draw in breath, and the young woman did so sparingly. She was soaked in sweat, but her body felt as if it were miles away, drowning in this ungodsly heat. She heard Navi—shouting now, though her words barely reached Lin's ears—ordering her to turn back and flee the cave. As much as she hated the idea of running away, it was probably for the best. Her head rolling limply, Linkali tried to look back and see if she could find the tunnel that would lead her out of the Cavern. She raised a foot to move in its direction (for though the edges of her vision were shadowed, she could see the dim, gray glow of the outside); a powerful wave of vertigo crashed over the back of her head, and the girl stumbled forward gracelessly.

Lin was breathing now in shallow, ragged gasps that seemed to tear out of her burned, aching chest. She was confused, disoriented; she began to lose all sense of where she was and where she was going. She brought herself up short, swaying and wavering wildly, her glassy eyes wide in panic, her labored breaths rapid and light. Dizziness drenched her like sweat, and her hands felt numb at the ends of her arms. The Hylian struggled to stay on her feet. The darkness at the edges of her sight began to spread and deepen, until it covered all but two small spots directly in front of her. Lin could feel the heat beginning to melt her away, body and mind, and though she struggled valiantly against it, in the end her best efforts were futile.

She collapsed to the floor and lost consciousness.

* * *

Navi spiraled over the fallen Hylian fearfully, her heart racing in her chest like a chased rabbit. She zipped down and knelt on the girl's upturned chest (for though she had dropped to her knees, Linkali had spun in her fall and landed on her back). "Lin! Lin!" she cried, taking tiny fistfuls of her partner's mantle and shaking it roughly in an attempt to rouse the unresponsive youth. "Lin!"

A low, thunderous grunt shook the air around the fairy, and Navi froze. Though her first reflex was to look over her shoulder, she decided against it and ducked swiftly under Linkali's collar to hide. There, she peeked her eyes up over the soft, green fabric, curious to a fault, and gaped in horror at the approaching monster. Its broad, rounded head came to a point at its horned top, and was split across the front by a wicked and crooked-fanged grin. Jagged spines of what appeared to be stone or horn lined its sloping back, and gray growths dotted its brown flanks. It walked with a shuffling kind of gait, for its long legs were far longer than its front, and much more heavily-muscled. Its squinted eyes flicked up and down the still Hylian's body, and the monster bent its head to sniff her; it snorted, shaking its head, and gripped one of Lin's arms in a clawed forepaw. Navi shuddered, mute with terror, as the monster began to drag Linkali away…and the hidden fairy as well!

* * *

The steady patter of raindrops filled Linkali's pointed ears long before she felt their cold wetness dotting her face. She flinched, screwing up her face and grunting softly as each one struck her. Her eyelids fluttered, and she struggled to sit upright, resting a hand to the side of her face woozily. Try as she might, the girl could not make sense of the thick, jumbled slurry of memory that filled her mind when she tried to think of how she had come to be laying out in the pouring rain. She turned to Navi; the blue woman had ceased darting around the Hylian's head anxiously when she'd realized Linkali was now awake, and was now settled on her knee. "What…happened?"

"You passed out," the fairy informed her, sounding immensely relieved and incredibly worried at the same time. "It's actually lucky that monster came by—it dragged you from the cave and dropped you back outside. I don't want to think about what might have happened if you hadn't gotten out of there."

Linkali sighed. The rain soaking into her scalp and shoulders felt wonderful—cool and gentle. She tipped her head back and let the falling drops wash her face. Her mind was beginning to fall back into order once again as the cool rain soothed her heat-ravaged brain. "Monster," she repeated quietly. "What did it look like?" She listened as her fairy friend described the beast, nodding slowly. "It sounds like it…could have been a Rogon."

"It's strange," Navi murmured. "I feel as though I've seen one before—or something much like one, at any rate." She shook her head. "It's too hot in those Caverns, Lin…I guess because Death Mountain is under so much pressure now. The mountain's heating up; I don't think you'll be able to survive the heat as you are now."

Lin blinked a few times. "As I am now?" she echoed. "You've been all around Hyrule, Navi…and you know so much—is there a way that I can protect myself from that heat?"

The fairy glowed warmly, causing the raindrops falling around her to shimmer and sparkle. "You'd need a Goron Tunic," she informed the youth. "And I know exactly where we can get you one: the Gorons themselves." She lifted into the air and drew back from the young woman a bit, drifting towards a sloping ridge that rose above Death Mountain Trail. "Can you stand?"

Linkali took a deep breath—relishing how cool it felt in her chest—and shifted more towards the side. She pushed herself up slowly, from hands and knees, to knees, to one knee, to standing on her own two feet. She wavered just slightly, letting out a short breath of air as she strove to keep her balance. The young Hylian took a shaky, hesitant step in her fairy partner's direction, carefully testing her feet and legs. Her strides grew more confident as she walked, and her natural balance returned. Before long, she was walking just as she had been before her experience in the Cavern. Navi led the way up the steep, stone path; Linkali followed after her.

After making their way up the trail through the chilly rain, the two travelers came to a rocky overhang. Lin pulled off her mantle and wrung it out as she followed the bobbing fairy ahead of her, a little glad to be out of the rain. Navi's blue glow illuminated a large, darkened passageway into the mountain stone; she zipped a few feet ahead of Linkali, darting back and forth as the girl trailed behind her.

The tunnel opened up—just as the one leading into the Caverns had—into a large, round room hewn out of the rock. It was a tiered room, with multiple levels, honeycombed with tunnels and passageways. The air was dry and somewhat cool, and smelled like dust and wet stone. Linkali gazed around silently as she walked towards the edge of the highest level, noting with some suspicion that the falls of her feet seemed to echo rather loudly throughout the entire room. Navi drifted from side to side, as if seeking something, before returning to hover in front of Lin's face. "Well, this is Goron City," she informed the girl, with growing anxiety. "There is usually…usually…The Gorons are a friendly people…and there's usually…"

"There's usually someone near the entrance to greet visitors," Linkali murmured, guessing what the fairy meant to say. Navi nodded slowly. "I don't think anyone is here—greeter or otherwise."

"They have abandoned their city," Navi said softly. Lin got the sense that the fairy had known this all along, but had been kidding herself; now she had to face facts. She drifted over to the edge of the level, where Lin stood, and looked down. In the center of the floor beneath, there lay a broken slab of stone; the veins of fissures and cracks surrounding it suggested it had fallen from a great height. "That platform in the middle of the floor down there—it used to be suspended by ropes." She indicated the broken, ratty fibers pegged to a weak-looking wooden board that jutted off the lip of the tier. "The Gorons took such care of their city…if they were still here, that platform would still be hanging instead of lying broken on the ground."

"What exactly…_are_ Gorons?" Linkali asked curiously. "I mean, what do they look like? I've never seen one before." Navi stared at her in silence for a few minutes, as if some personal realization were finally sinking in. Before Lin could say anything, the fairy shook herself briskly and beckoned. The girl followed her down a flight of stairs and through a number of passages, until they stood on the second-lowest level.

Navi stopped in front of a chipped, worn mural painted onto the side of the level, her gentle light throwing pieces of the choppy painting into relief. Linkali rested a hand on the yellow figures, her dark blue eyes flicking over their faces and bodies with interest. They were round of body and head, with their arms and legs positioned so that they almost appeared to be dancing together. One was turned more to the side than the others, and a few dull gray growths stemmed from its back. Wide smiles stretched across all of their nearly-circular faces, which came to a dull point at the crown. It was that shape which intrigued Linkali, and the Hylian girl squinted thoughtfully. "So these are Gorons?" Lin asked. "I remember reading about them in the Hero's story—it never described them physically, which is why I asked."

"Yes," Navi answered with a nod.

"The Evil King rounded them up and locked them in the Fire Temple, with plans to feed them to the ancient dragon as a warning to other races," the youth murmured, half to herself and half to her fairy. "And the Hero freed them. I wonder…Would their leader have tried to move them out of the city, to keep them from being captured a second time?"

"Darunia would have done anything to keep his people safe," the stocky fairy replied confidently. Linkali's pensive frown deepened, and she began to chew her lower lip reflectively.

"Even moving them into a place that had once been dangerous to them, and which could very well be dangerous again?" she wondered aloud. Navi was silent. "What if Darunia thought that the best course of action was to move the Gorons out of the city and into the Caverns? They would have been safe from the direct threat of King Ganon, even if they did have to face up to monsters every now and again." She turned to the fairy. "But they wouldn't have been safe from his more indirect means of harm. Do you remember how the Kokiri became the Kirikiri because of Ganon's corruptive power over Hyrule?"

"Please, Lin, don't remind me," Navi muttered with a shiver. Linkali murmured an apology and smiled sympathetically, then turned back to the mural.

"What if the same thing happened to the Gorons?" she asked quietly. She stretched up her arm and traced a line around one of the painted Goron's heads as high as she could reach. The fingers of her right hand sketched in the air in front of its long, upraised arms; she balled them into a loose fist and looked down at the Goron's burly legs. "What if they fell prey to King Ganon's dark power, and were transformed as well?" She glanced over at Navi. "I think I know where the Gorons are, Navi. They sought sanctuary in the Caverns, and over time became what we know as Rogons."

"The monster I saw…It almost _did_ look like it could have been a Goron," the fairy whispered. Linkali took her in a cupped hand and smiled gently. "And it almost makes sense that the Gorons would have been forgotten. Though they were an amiable race, they lived high on a mountain and rarely left it—they had little contact with the rest of Hyrule."

"Making it very easy for them to simply fade from memory," Lin muttered, a wry look crossing her face. She sighed and studied the Goron mural once more. "That's actually sad, when you think about it. An entire race goes into hiding and is steadily turned into monsters; no one notices that they're gone, only that a new type beast has appeared in the land."

"I wonder if they'll ever return to the way they once were," Navi whispered. "Even if you succeed and Hyrule is freed from Ganon's grip, his corruption may have gone too deep and may be locked into the land for good." There was a catch in her voice, and Linkali knew she was worried for the Kokiri. The Hylian shook her head sadly.

"One thing at a time," she told the fairy. She wanted to step away not only from the subject of the suffering, corrupted races of Hyrule, but also any mention of her fighting the Evil King. Linkali might be striving to break the Sages' seals and restore the Master Sword…but she was secretly hoping that someone else might be able to cover the battle for her. She had been raised to hate Ganon, but also to avoid any unnecessary conflict with him. "We came in here to see if we could find a heat-resistant tunic. Let's get that first; everything will follow the way the Goddesses see fit."

"You're right." Navi took a deep breath and released it slowly, then nodded. "We don't need to look at the big picture just yet. We should focus on one task at once." Lin got the feeling that the fairy had sensed her ulterior motives for the switch in conversation, but she wasn't quite sure. "The Goron shop is down this way—just hop off the ledge." Linkali obeyed, landing gracefully at the lowest level of Goron City. She could see the entrance to a dark tunnel and stepped in behind Navi.

The shop was situated in a small nook in the mountain rock. Two cases stood in the back, behind a raised platform of stone that looked like it could have once served as a counter. The cases were in ruin: One of them had toppled over, and the shelves of the other were broken in places. Lin hoisted herself up over the counter and dropped down behind it, searching through the rubble. Judging from the bleached carapaces of Tektite spiders and Wolfos skulls she'd seen scattered about, the abandoned city had not gone as unnoticed by monsters as it had by Hylians; the beasts had probably come in looking for shelter or food, and had knocked a few things around. There was nothing that the Hylian youth could see that would suggest an article of clothing lay in wait for her on the ground. It was only when she pushed herself up to check the busted-up shelves of the standing case that she saw the huddle of red fabric. Carefully, she lifted it up and held it in front of her.

"That's what we are looking for," Navi told her, sounding happier than she had before. "It's made to fit an adult, so I think you'll be able to wear it just fine. Try it on, Lin!"

The girl glanced from tunic to fairy before shedding her pack and belt. She dropped her green mantle, which was still rather damp from the rain, beside them, and pulled the crimson tunic over her head. Linkali pinched a small bit of the fabric between her thumb and forefinger, rolling it experimentally. "It doesn't feel like it has been gathering dust for all these years," she said, sounding somewhat amazed. "And it doesn't really feel any different from my shirt, even though I _know_ it can't be the same material."

"I never knew why it worked," the fairy admitted, "only that it _did_ work."

Linkali nodded as she put her belt back on, canting it at its familiar angle across her hips. Though she was not one to blindly accept things that challenged reason, she found she could make a small exception for this tunic. She wrung her mantle out once more before stowing it in her pack. As she was sliding the strap over her shoulder and preparing to leave the shop, Navi stopped her. "Wait—take a bag of bombs, too. They'll be helpful if we run into Beamos or Dodongos." The fairy hovered over a lumpy brown pouch on the floor. Lin picked up the bag and pulled a black sphere from inside, blinking at it for a moment in silence.

"Explosives?" she asked finally, a little amused. "You trust me with something destructive?" Navi nodded, plainly serious. "Well, you are the experienced adventurer here, not me." The Hylian girl pulled the drawstring shut and looked for a place to tie it onto her belt. Not on the right—that was where she had strapped her bow to counterbalance the sword, and also where the pouch of Medallions rested. Not on the left, either, for if she did, she would have to fumble around to unsheathe her sword. It wouldn't be right to store them in her pack, either; not only was there the possibility of one of them accidentally lighting itself, but they would also be hard to reach if she needed them in battle. At a bit of a loss over what to do, Linkali turned to Navi. The fairy hummed down lower.

"Let me show you something," she said. "It's a simple trick, and it barely requires any magic to perform. You've heard of the spell Farore's Wind, haven't you?" Lin nodded. "This is similar to that. The technical term is banishing. It allows you to send away and bring back items or weapons; they will always be at your disposal, but you won't have to carry them everywhere with you."

Linkali opened her mouth to tell the fairy that, as a Hylian, she was unable to use magic…and stopped. She brought to mind her last encounter with the Warrior's Spirit, and how he had shown her how to create a Light Arrow. He had said that being the bearer of the Triforce of Courage had granted her some magical ability, and that he had helped her bring it out. _But that was a dream,_ the girl thought. _Why would something that happened in a dream have any holding in real life?_ There was really only one way to find out, and that was to try. "Can you show me how?" she asked Navi. The fairy nodded.

The movements, according to the stocky woman, were similar to those needed to cast Farore's Wind, just smaller and a little simpler. At Navi's instruction, Linkali held the bag of bombs in her two hands, one at the top and the other at the bottom. She created an image of a small room in her mind, the place where she would "store" the bombs until they were needed. Then, with a swift flick of her wrists, Lin focused on that room and spun her hands around the bag so that the top and bottom hands switched places. The purr that filled her blood and bones the first time caused her to drop the bag. She stared silently at her hands—neither of which displayed anything out of the ordinary, but both of which were alive with a strange feeling of pulsing energy. The youth bit her lower lip; it was the same sensation of ancient power that had flooded her when she was with the Spirit, although to a much lesser extent here. _So I _can_ use magic?_ Emboldened by this thought, Linkali picked up the bag of bombs and tried again. She let out a gasp of shock as the lumpy bag vanished from between her cycling hands.

"Well done! It's in the place you set up for it now," Navi informed her. "When you need it again, all you do is picture that room, focus on the item you want, and make the same movements. Just be warned: Bombs light themselves when you summon them to your hands, so you'll have to be quick." **(1)**

Intrigued and excited by her new trick, Linkali banished her pack and Hookshot, and was somewhat startled—though she felt as if she should have expected—to see that each item appeared in the room without her having to think about its presence. She kept the Fairy Bow with her, and slid the quiver over her shoulder; it struck her as a good idea to keep a ranged weapon on her person. The young woman pushed herself off the floor, grinning up at her partner. Though the mystical buzz was slight, her sense of accomplishment and wonder was not, and Lin couldn't help feeling just a little proud of herself.

* * *

The Cavern was still unbelievably hot, though Linkali found that her mind stayed just as keen and her muscles were just as steady as they had been outside in the cool rain. She wasn't exactly sure _how_ it could be so, but she had to attribute it to the mysterious properties of the Goron Tunic she now wore. She noticed that wearing the red garment had another, inexplicable effect: The stagnant lava lying on the floor in thick puddles did not hurt her. She could safely race across what was doubtlessly molten rock that could burn her feet right off. Lin figured that if she stood around in it long enough, she _would_ eventually get hurt, but the girl had no intention of testing her luck like that. It was just nice to know that should she get thrown from a platform and into the lava, it would not mean an instant, fiery, excruciating death.

Now that she knew that they had once been a sentient, friendly race, Linkali found it difficult to attack Rogons when she saw them—even when it seemed to be a case of her life or theirs. Navi was no great help, either; instead of again lecturing the youth about showing no mercy to monsters, the fairy would sometimes plead with Lin to be gentler in her dealings with the stony-skinned beasts. She was in, and the Rogons wanted her out, and they were not opposed to using brute force.

There were other monsters too, though they seemed small and timid in comparison with the brutal, territorial beasts that had once been the Goron people. Lin spotted Dodongos, armored lizard-beasts who breathed out fire with angry, squealing roars; at Navi's coaching, she set a bomb in front of them as they inhaled, and struck at their tails with her sword when they collapsed, stunned. She faced Beamos, rotating statues who fired beams of energy at anyone who fell within the sights of their single eye, and Armos, fearsome statues who lunged to attack the one who touched them. The young woman found that, though they could sometimes be difficult to deal with, she almost enjoyed encountering these monsters. (Frankly, it felt _good_ to be a little aggressive.) They had never been a thinking, feeling people; she could attack them without fearing for her conscience. The Rogons, on the other hand, could never be assaulted directly.

A typical confrontation with a Rogon would follow thusly: The monster would see Linkali creeping along the edge of the wall, or would sniff her out when she attempted to hide behind a stone statue. It would bellow in a voice that seemed to send tangible waves of sound reverberating through the air, then curl in on itself and roll towards Lin at breakneck speed, its jagged back-spines tearing up chunks of the stone floor. The Hylian youth would break cover and flee the scene as fast as she was able, scrabbling desperately at chinks in the rock wall that she could climb to safety or pounding the flat of her hand against a door to open it. If the Rogon caught up with her, which happened more often than not, Linkali would be sent flying a fair distance to land roughly on the stone floor. Her opponent would hesitate just long enough for the sore girl to stagger to her feet before shooting towards her, and the game would begin again.

It had gotten more difficult as her fatigue had weighed her down, the girl had figured out one thing that she _could_ do to the Rogons that attacked her. Serendipity had shown her that although their skin and skulls were tough, a head-on collision with the rock wall would leave the rolling monsters stunned and unable to attack for a time. Linkali would lure them towards a wall, hesitating with a racing heart as the beast thundered near, then dive away with seconds to spare. If she was lucky and judged correctly, the Rogon would smack its head against the immovable stone, and thump down limply. (If she was _un_lucky, and dodged too soon, her assailant would change course and ram _her_ against the wall instead.) Those few precious minutes often afforded Lin enough time to either flee the room or climb to a safe perch while she sought another escape.

Linkali hated running away from the Rogons. Given the choice, she'd much rather teach them a lesson with bombs and a sword—confront them directly, at the very least. She almost wished that she _didn't_ know about their past as Gorons, and that she could take them on without fear of harming them. (Take them on with _intention_ of harming them, even.) The Rogons clearly did not remember what they had once been, and they did not seem to realize that the intruder in their caves was treating them far more gently than they were treating her; even if they did, they still struck her just as ruthlessly. Fleeing from them, she felt…_ashamed_, dishonored—strange emotions for a Hylian who was raised to be a King-fearing coward.

By evening, Lin was exhausted, both from escaping from Rogons and from the incredible stress of the day. Her head was throbbing (she'd struck it a handful of times in her wild falls), and she was soaked with sweat from the Cavern's unreal heat. If someone were to ask her if she would have liked to curl up in a corner and die, the Hylian probably would have said "yes, sounds wonderful" and taken them up on their offer. A safe place to rest was long in coming, and though she could not see it, the sun had since set before Linkali was able to settle down in a Rogon-free corner of the Cavern.

Lin found a tunnel that went back into the rock of the caves about fifteen feet or so, and limped wearily into the darkness. Its sides were rough-hewn, but the floor was strangely smooth and cool to the touch. Linkali left the first few feet of the tunnel as a sort of safe zone and slumped down deeper in the darkness. She was starving, but her weariness weighed more heavily on her mind and rest was the higher priority. Navi floated down to land on the battered Hylian's shoulder, dimming her light so that the figure of her stocky body was visible once more. Lin lay on her side, pillowing her aching head in the crook on her right arm. She narrowed her eyes; she could feel sleep beginning to sneak up on her with comforting, black arms. In the instant before she fell asleep, though, the girl felt as if a hand of cool mist was resting against her left hand, and swore she saw the faintest gleam of golden light. Then, she saw nothing as sleep covered her tired mind.

* * *

Navi remained awake, for she was not as tired as her young partner and figured that she should keep watch while Linkali slept. The blue fairy found herself stroking Lin's cheek comfortingly with her cool hand, as she had sometimes done to Link when he had been sleeping off a particularly grueling adventure; she remembered how the boy's lips would sometimes twitch in his sleep when she did this, and how he would smile serenely and give a contented sigh. The young woman whose face she touched now responded just as her forebear had, and the tense lines of pain that had creased her forehead smoothed out. Navi found herself sighing a little sadly. She had loved Link dearly, and still missed him immensely all these years after his death…but she found herself quickly developing a relationship with Linkali that seemed to ease the pain of loss and fill her with new hope. She would do better this time—she would not let another warrior under her care perish as the Hylian boy had.

As she caressed Lin's face, Navi became aware of muffled grunts and hushed movement outside the tunnel entrance. She glanced at the girl, who appeared to be sleeping rather soundly, and drifted cautiously forward to get a better look. Almost instantly, she zipped backwards and slipped down the collar of Linkali's tunic, quivering with fear.

A good number of Rogons—perhaps four or five—were stationed at the mouth of the passageway. Most of them had had sizeable chunks of rock in their claws, and were beginning to stack them up around the tunnel entrance. Navi listened in horror as the barricade grew; she shook Linkali's shoulder and whispered pleadingly, "Lin…Lin, wake up. Wake up, Lin, please…Lin…"

* * *

Snow crunched under Linkali's boots as the young Hylian walked slowly down the long, winding hallway. The walls of the tunnel appeared to be made of ice; they glistened coldly in shades of white and blue. The air around her was frigid—icy and sharp like a winter wind—and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms vigorously to warm them. Lin was no stranger to the cold (winters in Hyrule could be cruel and long), but she found it strange that this cold could be so…cutting. It wasn't long before she lost feeling in her fingers and her teeth began to chatter together. Her chest ached from the cold air her frozen lungs took in.

As uninviting as this icy hall was, though, the girl found that it was strangely beautiful. Long, pointed icicles rose from the floor and dangled from the ceiling, their lengths painted with variegated, rich blues and shimmering shades of mist-gray. (And when one of them fell from above and shattered at her feet, it sent up a spray of twinkling fragments, like pieces of a star.) The frost-covered walls were almost crystalline in their iced luster, and the virgin snow beneath her feet was pure, shining white. Linkali walked slowly out of wonder and amazement, looking around in awe. She found it interesting that she felt no pain here—her throbbing head, sore shoulders, and raw back felt as they had before she had entered the Cavern, and the cramps in her muscles had vanished entirely. At the end of the passageway, Lin spotted a place on the wall where the ice darkened into blue and the outline of a door appeared. She rested her hand on the sleek surface and stepped through the door as it opened. Her jaw dropped open in amazement at the room that she entered.

Glowing, cerulean crystals—whether of ice or stone Linkali was not sure—spiked the ground like strange trees and studded the black walls like stars. The snow beneath her feet was dappled with refracted light, painted with indigos and greens and violets. The Hylian youth walked reverently into the room, her eyes taking in the beauty around her hungrily. She reached the middle of the crystal chamber, shaking her head in pure disbelief, her icy hands forgotten for the moment.

"It is beautiful…isn't it, Lin?" the voice of the Warrior's Spirit asked from behind her. Linkali whipped around, still a little speechless, and stared at the armored man. The Spirit laughed softly as he stepped towards her, his boots crunching lightly on the painted snows. The surreal blue light gleamed on his plated armor, swirling and playing across the shiny surfaces. "Close your mouth—your tongue might freeze."

Linkali snapped her open jaws shut, suddenly reminded of just how cold she was. The Warrior's Spirit drew near, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders and pulling the shivering teen closer to his side. Lin rested her ear against his chest, just above his breastplate, and listened to the warm beating of his heart—a sound that always seemed to bring her peace. He seemed to radiate a gentle heat (though the hand on her upper arm felt almost cool), and within minutes, she was no longer quivering with chills. "My words to you tonight will be brief," the Spirit told her, "for there are matters in the waking world that require your attention." Linkali nodded, stepping back a bit reluctantly to listen. She was warmer now, but that didn't mean she liked distancing herself from the warm man. "A true warrior never loses their calm, not even in the most dangerous and hopeless of circumstances. When the situation heats up around you, you must remain cool and collected—as steadfast as the ice crystals. Remember this." Though his visor was down and his eyes were invisible, Lin could still feel the firm stare he fixed her with. She nodded. "That is all I must tell you."

The Spirit took her hand in both of his, holding it gently. The magnificent crystal cave shimmered once around them, then faded to black. Linkali was a little disappointed that her dream with him would end so soon, but she didn't feel that there was anything she could really do. "We shall meet again," the man promised her, and his rich voice set the girl's heart at ease. "Take care, Lin." He released her hand, and Lin tumbled back into dark sleep.

* * *

"_Lin! Lin!_"

Linkali jerked awake, flailing her limbs briefly as the fairy's voice drilled into her ear. She blinked in the darkness and sat up slowly, disoriented by the tiredness which her short sleep had not alleviated (and by the sudden heat of the Cavern). Her dream with the Warrior's Spirit hadn't been true sleep, she knew; she was still just as exhausted as when she had curled up to rest, and her body was still one massive ache. Navi zoomed right up into the young Hylian's face; her pale blue light dimmed and brightened crazily, a sure sign that she was very agitated and anxious. The fairy hovered for a brief moment, then dropped down onto Lin's chest with a relieved sigh.

"Thank Goddesses, Lin," she murmured. "I don't know how _long_ I've been trying to rouse you."

"You sounded so upset just a second ago," the confused Linkali told her gently, resting one of her long fingers on Navi's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Why were you so worried—or even so determined to waken me?"

The simple question seemed to remind the fairy of the fear she had felt before Lin had opened her eyes. She streaked up into the air, darting towards the entrance of the tunnel where the girl had chosen to rest, then zipping back to her young partner. "We're trapped, Lin!" she cried in panic, her light stuttering and flickering. "We were blocked in by Rogons!" The Hylian youth shoved herself roughly to her feet, grunting softly as her stiff, tired muscles screamed in protest. She walked through the dark passage, one hand out in front of herself, and stopped cold as her outstretched hand hit stone. Thin, weak streams of light shafted through cracks in the rock wall; Linkali knelt down and peered through the largest one she could find.

An icy thrill of alarm bolted through her as she recognized the room beyond the wall. She jerked back, lost her balance, and fell flat onto her backside.

Linkali felt her heart begin to race in her chest anxiously; Navi was right—they were trapped! Behind her, the fairy began racing up and down the length of the blocked tunnel in frenzy. Lin felt a similar panic building inside of her, a blind, uncontrolled rush of emotion that would surely send her over the edge. But then, before she could lose herself in the surge of worry, the words of the Warrior's Spirit, so recently uttered, echoed through the young woman's mind:_ When the situation heats up around you, you must remain cool and collected—as steadfast as the ice crystals. _Linkali closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe in a deeper and more controlled manner. She pressed her forehead against the warm stone that barred her escape from the tunnel, trying to blot of the sound of Navi's fizzings and flutterings. Panic clearly wasn't doing her fairy friend and favors—all of that mindless darting seemed to make Navi even _more_ agitated, if nothing else.

The thought of being trapped in the belly of a fiery cavern with no real hope of rescue was hard to suppress, but Lin was stubborn to a fault. She forced the thought away, shoving it aside firmly; in its place, she put memories of the place she had just seen: that breathtaking crystal cave. _Steadfast as the ice crystals. _Breathing deeply, Linkali strove to fill her mind with images of the glistening blue formations, and the color-dappled snow, and the starlike glitter of the walls. She let them flood her thoughts, drowning out the worry and anxiety, and filling her heart with calm. _Deep breaths…Remember how wonderful it was. I'd never seen half of those shades of blue before in my life…and they were, all of them, so beautiful…_

When she opened her eyes, there was a placid glow in them—the look of one who is trouble by nothing. Linkali rose slowly to her feet and turned her back on the blocked exit. Her blue eyes were not as sharp as others' in the dark, and she would have preferred that Navi stay still and light one place rather than whooshing all over, but it couldn't be helped. "A bomb would not be a wise choice," the youth murmured to herself. "The force of the blast might cause the tunnel itself to collapse." Without really looking, she rested a hand cooly on the stones behind her and gave a swift shove; the rock she'd pushed grated loudly, though it sounded as if it were being pushed more firmly into place than out of it. Lin frowned lightly. "No, that won't do either." She looked up at the frantic fairy. "Navi, settle down…We'll figure out a way to get free."

Navi ignored her, or else was so consumed by her fear that she did not hear. Linkali sighed softly; she could feel the nagging worry eating away at her as well, but she was doing her level best to keep it controlled and contained. (After all, someone bearing the Triforce of _Courage_ shouldn't be afraid, should they? Lin didn't think so.) The Hylian watched her fairy partner zipping swiftly from end to end of the tunnel for a few moments, then twitched when a stray glimmer of Navi's light illuminated something that caught her eye. "What was that?" she asked, but the fairy did not acknowledge her. Linkali smothered a sigh and limped forwards until she stood in the middle of the dark tunnel. She waited, gauged her timing, and clapped her hands around Navi's body when she shot over the girl's head. Lin held her friend in a firm, but gentle grasp until she felt the fairy settle, then released her. "Navi, can you light up that end of the tunnel, please? I saw something."

"O-okay," Navi stammered. She drifted obediently over in the direction of Linkali's pointing finger. The Hylian girl nodded her thanks and followed, kneeling down to investigate the strange object. "It's…It's a chest."

"I can see that," Lin murmured. "I wonder what it's doing here, though." She glanced at Navi. "Might as well see what's inside."

"I doubt it's anything that can help us," the fairy muttered, her voice trembling. Linkali paused, wondering if she should ask Navi what was truly bothering her. The tiny woman could be emotional, yes, but Lin sensed that there was something else that was causing Navi to react to the situation at hand with such intensity. She shook aside the thought; if it was causing her enough stress, the fairy would probably tell her on her own.

"You don't know that," Lin said quietly in response to her companion's derision. Navi hesitated, clearly confused by how laid-back the girl appeared to be. Linkali smiled gently as she undid the latches on the chest and shoved it open with the heels of her hands. The fairy settled down to rest on the edge of the lid, shedding her pale glow down into the dark belly of the box.

The young Hylian reached down into chest and wrapped her hand around what lay within. She started to lift it, only to pause as the object proved to be heavier than she'd previously thought. _Much_ heavier. She reached in with her other hand, and with the smooth shaft of the item in her grasp, began hauling it out of the chest. The youth nearly dropped it on her toes when she first hefted it. Navi drifted up and down the length of the weapon, shaking her head in awe. "If this is what I think it is," she whispered, her voice trailing off in wonder.

"It's a hammer," Linkali grunted, half-tempted to banish the weighty item just to get it off her hands. She resisted the urge, though, and instead pulled it up a little higher and braced it against the top of her thigh. "It is a large, unreasonably heavy hammer."

"It's the Megaton Hammer."

Lin blinked in silence for a moment, attempting to weigh both Navi's words and the hefty weapon in her hands. Then, she looked down to study it more carefully. It certainly _looked_ like a warhammer (or, rather, it certainly _didn't_ _look_ like a hammer used for normal construction work). "The Megaton Hammer," she repeated softly. "The legendary hammer of the Goron hero, used to defeat the lava dragon, Volvagia." The youth glanced up and down the length of her new weapon, then over at Navi with a grin. "Think it works on rocks, too?"

"There's only one way to find out," the fairy replied, sounding genuinely amused.

Linkali crouched lower and hauled the hammer up a little higher, then began walking over to the blocked exit. Her gaze flicked from chink to chink in the barricade, seeking the weakest of the weak points. She chose the largest gap, one close to the bottom of the wall; with a cry and a pounce, the young woman brought the Megaton Hammer crashing down. The force of the impact reverberated throughout the room in a low, bass _thoom_, and Lin swore she could actually _see_ shock waves from the blow. She banished the hammer swiftly (startling herself at how instinctively she seemed to spin the handle of the weapon in her hands) and skipped backwards as the rock wall began to tumble down. Girl and fairy hung back, heads turned away from the cascade of stone and dust.

When the rumbling ceased, Linkali summoned the Megaton Hammer into her hands warily, staggering as the weight of it surprised her yet again, and stepped cautiously towards the entrance of the tunnel. No monsters lay in wait for her; the coast was perfectly clear. The youth let out a quiet sigh of relief and banished her hammer. Navi hummed in front of her excitedly. "Lin, that was unbelievable!" she declared. "How did you…How were you so calm?"

The young Hylian grinned just slightly. " 'A true warrior never loses their calm, not even in the most dangerous and hopeless of circumstances,' " she quipped in a soft voice, silently thanking the mysterious Spirit from her dreams. With a tingle of pleasant surprise, she realized that her cool head had been what saved her; if she'd allowed herself to fly off the handle like Navi had, she never would have noticed the chest.

"Where are we going to go now?" Navi asked. Linkali looked up at her, a rather sardonic glint appearing in her glazed blue eyes. She smirked.

"You are welcome to go wherever you please," she said. "As for _me_…I'm going back to sleep. I'm still tired." And with that, she limped stiffly towards the back end of the tunnel and slumped down to the floor. She heard Navi chuckle softly and felt the fairy's feather-light hand on her cheek.

"Sleep well, Lin," she whispered tenderly. The Hylian girl smiled and closed her eyes with a contented sigh. Perhaps rest would improve the sharp, nagging aches all over her body. Sleep was not long in coming to the tired youth, and within minutes, she was resting peacefully.

* * *

"It's down there…that's the last room in this place," Navi said, hovering over the hole in the ground. "We haven't found Darunia anywhere else; this is the only place that we have yet to look." Linkali balked, kneeling down and peering over the edge of the hole. "Just jump down."

"It looks pretty far," she murmured. _If Navi wants someone who's going to look without leaping, she's partnered herself with the wrong Hylian,_ she thought. _Bartal would be the one for that._

"It's not nearly as far as it looks," the fairy assured her, settling down on the girl's shoulder.

Lin flinched just slightly as Navi rested on a rather tender piece of muscle. Though sleep had quieted much of the pains that had plagued her, she still had to contend with the new aches in her arms and shoulders from slinging the Megaton Hammer about. As heavy as it was, the girl found that she rather liked the feel of the mighty weapon; it rested comfortably in her hands, in a way that almost seemed familiar. (She also enjoyed the deep, echoing note that seemed to hum through the ground whenever it struck.)

With the legendary hammer in her grasp, Lin found that she no longer had to play her risky game of dodging Rogons; a blow to the head from the Megaton Hammer served much the same purpose as a blow to the head from a stationary rock wall. One deft smack would knock the monster clean out, affording the one who had struck it plenty of time to escape. Navi had been horrified the first time her Hylian companion had swung the hammer at what had once been a member of a very peaceful race, but once she realized that the weapon had done no serious harm, she calmed down immensely and even encouraged the counterstriking. The two travelers' second day in the Cavern had gone far more smoothly than the first.

It was the morning of the third day, and Linkali was starting to get a little antsy. She had to find the Sage of Fire _today_ if she was going to get home before her father began to fret. The youth glanced up at her fairy partner, who was watching her with kindly patience. "I guess the only way to find out is to see for ourselves," Linkali mused. She took a deep breath and, placing her hand on the edge of it, vaulted nimbly into the gaping hole with a wild cry.

The roughly circular room in which she landed was as large—if not larg_er_—than the first room of the Rogons' Caverns. A path of tawny-gray stone ran around the outside edge of it, littered with withered Bomb Flower greens and monster bones. Much of the room was floored with black rock that was shot through with square cracks; a fiery orange light etched the lines between the plates with a dull luminance. A massive monster skull stuck up from the center of the floor, lit from beneath by the eerily glowing cracks; ivory fangs lined its gaping jaws, and pieces of scaly, fossilized-looking skin still clung to parts of the crown of its head. (_Is that…King Dodongo?_ Linkali wondered with a shudder.) While she was staring, something large and dark shifted behind the monstrous skull, its movement visible in the gaping eye sockets.

Treading cautiously, the Hylian girl stepped across the black volcanic rock and made her way towards the skull. She was no fewer than ten feet away when a low, Rogon-like grumble stopped her dead in her tracks. Then, to her great surprise, someone—or some_thing_—began to speak to her.

"It is you, then," growled the voice, which was curt and gruff, and sounded like the mountain itself was trying to talk. Something about its timber and quality touched Lin's heart, and somehow she knew that she had found Darunia. "The one. The one they told me of. They say you are fast. That you have an iron arm that can break rock and bruise skulls."

Linkali could only stare as the speaker moved out from behind the Dodongo skull and began stomping towards her. It was a Rogon, though far larger than any she had seen so far; it may have stood close to nine feet tall on all four legs, and judging from the way the ground shook beneath it, it was probably twice as heavy as the others of its kind. Its tawny skin was studded with chunks of dark gray stone, and unbelievable muscles bulged under its weathered hide with every stride it took. The thick, sharp, stony spikes protruding from its broad back were twisted and gnarled, something that Lin had seen on some of the other Rogons, and which she attributed to old age. A collar of paler-colored spurs surrounded its head and neck, bristling like tan knives around it. The massive Rogon stopped when it stepped in front of the skull, and crouched there, eying the Hylian critically. It snorted, snapped its uneven fangs, and hunched its powerful shoulders.

"You do not look dangerous," it commented scornfully. "You are like a tiny lizard. But they say you are. As patriarch of the Rogons, it is my task to keep them safe. And you, little lizard, threaten them. I, Darrun, will purge my Cavern of your threat." The huge beast threw back his head and roared, a sound so mighty that Linkali could actually _feel_ the shockwaves from it strike her. Darrun leapt into the air with surprising agility and curled himself into a tight ball; he fell to earth, the force of his impact shattering the surrounding black stone, and began thundering towards the girl.

Linkali summoned the Megaton Hammer and braced the end of it against her thigh, narrowing her eyes in concentration. Darrun moved faster than any Rogon she had encountered so far, despite his old age and bulky body. So much faster that she could not effectively time when he would fall within her striking range; before she could even think to heft the hammer in her grasp, he struck her, knocking her back a fair distance. Navi shrilled her alarm. Lin hit the edge of the stone path that wrapped around the chamber, losing her air in a surprised, choked gasp. She shoved herself up roughly, banishing the Megaton Hammer for the moment. Darrun had stopped rolling when he'd hit her, and was now stumping towards her like a prowling cat. His heavy steps were menacing in their slowness, and Linkali got the feeling that he was toying with her, teasing her.

"Come, little lizard," the Rogon patriarch rumbled. "Where is your iron arm? Show me. I want to see it. What it can do?"

Linkali bit her lower lip as Darrun stalked closer, gauging the distance between the two of them carefully. She began to back away slowly, though her steps were small in comparison to his, and she almost seemed to _lose_ ground. Her dark blue eyes follow her opponent's every move cautiously and she waited from him to strike again. It took a few moments, but after it became apparent that Lin was not going to take the initiative, Darrun lunged upwards and curled once again into a furious, speeding ball. Linkali pressed her back against the wall, holding out for her chance to leap aside. Her timing was better this go-round, and she actually managed to jump away just before Darrun would have smashed her against the rock. Her flicker of pride was quickly extinguished when she saw that the massive Rogon had not been laid out by the impact, but rather that he ricocheted off the wall and back-spiraled through the air to land about twenty feet away—completely unfazed.

The Rogon wasted no time in curling up for a third assault. This time, Linkali summoned the Megaton Hammer and gripped it tightly. She remembered how poorly she had timed her last strike, and decided to go at it a little earlier this time. Darrun thundered at her, closing the gap between them with unbelievable swiftness. Lin slung the hammer—too soon! She dealt the ground at her feet a hefty blow, with just enough time to banish her weapon before her opponent slammed into her, throwing her back against the rock wall of the chamber. Navi shrieked fearfully and buzzed around her friend. The impact with the unmoving stone stunned the Hylian girl, and for a few moments, she could only lay in a heap at the foot of the wall and stare with glazed eyes. Then, slowly, she forced herself to rise, rubbing the back of her head gingerly. When her fairy companion flitted around her worriedly, Linkali merely commented dryly, "This is a _little_ harder than the Forest Temple."

Darrun was pacing, clearly waiting for his foe to stand and face him again. Lin took her time getting back on her feet, and she reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out the Fire Medallion. She rolled it between her fingers while Darrun roared and rolled. The youth made another miraculous dodge when the Rogon came at her, although this time she tried to press the Medallion against the corrupted Sage's shoulder. Sparks flurried around her hand, stinging her fingers and nearly causing her to drop the crucial item. Linkali uttered a rare obscenity and banished the Medallion swiftly. _He's too well protected,_ she thought, watching Darrun spin through the air to land back on his feet. _I need to figure out a way to break through his defenses first if I'm going to return this Medallion._

By chance—or perhaps divine intervention—Linkali noticed that the spiny plating on the Rogon's right shoulder appeared…damaged. It looked chipped and worn, and the spike that pushed out of it was somewhat dull. If she could use the Megaton Hammer to chip away at it, she might be able to expose some softer skin and press the Medallion against that. The only question was just _how_ to get him to stay still for long enough that she could strike, for swinging her hammer at a moving target (especially one so fast) was out of the question. Lin began edging hurriedly around the room so that she was standing behind the Dodongo skull. Surely an impact with that would slow Darrun down, if not stop him completely. It was worth a try, wasn't it?

The Hylian summoned her hammer just as the Rogon patriarch began rolling furiously towards her. She waited, tense, as Darrun's spined back ripped up the ground he passed over. She could only see pieces of his approach through the sockets of the skull, but she trusted that the old bones would hold fast. Her trust, unfortunately, was in vain; the skull was too old, or Darrun was too strong, or some combination of the two. Either way, the rolling Rogon smashed through the Dodongo bones, sending fragments of them flying through the air. He neither slowed nor stopped, but continued as if nothing had interrupted him. Lin banished the Megaton Hammer, and grimly braced herself for impact—she knew she had no time to run.

Linkali landed heavily at the edge of the wall, the blow to her head mercifully cushioned by the crunching, crumbling leaves of a dried-up Bomb Flower. She sat up, shaking her head briskly and halfheartedly stretching her aching, sore body. The sight of the withered plant saddened her, for Navi had told her that the Gorons had prized the Bomb Flower above all else; the dead leaves were just another sad reminder that the Gorons were a different race now. _But why would they stop tending the Bomb Flowers?_ Lin wondered. _The Kirikiri tried to keep everything that was meaningful to them; why would the Rogons be so different?_

A flash of insight flared up in the Hylian youth's mind. What if the Rogons had let their precious crop die out because it no longer meant the same to them? They had become more like monsters; it was painfully clear that the monsters in this Cavern hated smoke and explosions. If they had truly become like the beasts around them, then the Rogons would have feared and hated the combustive Bomb Flower just as much as the cave's other denizens. The blast from a bomb blinded Beamos, destroyed Armos, and stunned Dodongos. _What would it do to a Rogon?_

Linkali heaved herself upright, pushing past the pain that threatened to drag her down again. Darrun prowled towards her, curling in preparation for another rolling attack. Lin moved quickly, summoning one of her bombs to her hands and lobbing it at the spinning beast. The bomb exploded on impact, and Darrun let loose with a wild bellow of pain as he burst out from his ball and landed flat on his belly. The young Hylian did not pause to celebrate; she summoned the Megaton Hammer and lunged at the corrupted Sage, dealing a solid blow to his armored shoulder. Chips of stone flew up around the point of impact, and Darrun squalled shrilly before backflipping away and rolling back.

"How did you _do_ that?" Navi cried excitedly.

"Tell you later," Linkali replied breathlessly, banishing the hammer. Her eyes fixed on Darrun, who was pacing in front of her, out of bomb range. His squinted eyes were nearly buried in an immense frown; whether it was pain or frustration, Lin couldn't say for sure.

"That stung, little lizard," the Rogon grunted. "But you should have gone for my head. If you want to kill me, don't play around." Linkali held her tongue, too out-of-breath to speak and too smart to tell him he was wrong. Darrun barreled towards her once more, and again, Lin pegged him with a bomb. The explosion stunned him, though a quick hit from the Megaton Hammer broke him out of his stupor.

The fight continued like this for quite some time, although Darrun learned after the second swipe that he was vulnerable when he made a direct pass at Linkali. The Rogon began swerving wildly when he approached in an attempt to break the girl's aim. His ploy worked, and more than once, the girl was sent flying when she left herself too little room to escape. Before long, Lin was tired, sore, and growing incredibly frustrated. She started hurling bombs wildly, hoping that one of them would make the desired contact; all she gained from that was a depleted bomb supply. Darrun's shoulder remained just as armored as ever; she had barely made a dent in it. Just as she was preparing to sling the Megaton Hammer away in a flare of temper, Linkali felt a cool touch on her shoulder—light as a feather made of morning mist. _A true warrior never loses their calm, not even in the most dangerous and hopeless of circumstances._

The young warrior drew in a deep, slow breath, hoping to fill her heart with the icy calm of the crystal cave from her dream. Darrun faced her. He looked tired as well, his muscular shoulders heaving with every heavy breath, his round head lower than it had been at the start of the fight. He hopped up, rolled into a spined ball, and began thundering towards the Hylian. Linkali narrowed her eyes, reminding herself that though he was technically a Sage, Darrun was also a Rogon. She summoned the Megaton Hammer and braced it on the crest of her hip, licking her lips nervously. Darrun barreled forward, closing the distance between him and the youth. Lin struggled for calm against her pounding heart; she knew that a cool head often yielded greater clarity and insight. In the end, though, it was her eyes and her experience that won the day. Linkali watched her opponent carefully, her sharp eyes tracking his every move.

Then, with a loud cry, she lunged forward, and brought the Megaton Hammer crashing down soundly on the top of Darrun's head.

The Rogon patriarch unrolled gracelessly and dropped to the floor. Lin wasted no time; she scrambled towards his shoulder and began slinging the hammer down as hard and fast as she could, shouting hoarsely with every swing. Darrun bellowed with each strike, but he did not rise; Linkali's initial strike had downed him for a time. Shards of stone sprayed up around the head of the Megaton Hammer as swing after swing crushed the protective plating on Darrun's shoulder. More skin—tawny like the rest, but lighter in color, and tender-looking—appeared under the youth's hefty blows. Finally, when she had chipped away a large enough patch, Linkali banished her hammer and summoned the Medallion. She rolled it between her fingers briefly, then pressed it swiftly against the exposed skin on the corrupted Sage's shoulder.

Nothing happened; then, with startling speed, the Fire Medallion melted under Linkali's fingers and soaked into Darrun's flesh. Blinding white light exploded from the huge monster, whose roars shook the ground. Lin shielded her eyes with an arm and staggered backwards, stumbling and landing hard on her rear. The light disappeared just as quickly as it burst into being, and after a moment, a rich, deep voice hummed through the air like the purring of a massive cat: "Need a hand, Brother?"

Linkali lowered her arm and blinked up at the speaker. The Sage of Fire was a Goron of enormous proportions, though he was considerably smaller than Darrun had been. Rough-looking spikes of stone made a mane around his neck and head, and his body was bulked with incredible muscle and strung with thick tendons. Lin almost certainly would have tried to flee from the rough-looking creature, if she hadn't seen the warm, caring, friendly smile that stretched across his face and the gentle way he was holding out his thick hand to her. She grinned and accepted his offer. Darunia, rather than help steady her or gradually ease up upright (as she thought he might), simply hauled her to her feet as if she weighed nothing at all. Linkali could feel the gentle control in his grip on her hand and in the way he lifted her; he possessed incredible strength, but had toned it down in such a way that he neither crushed her fingers nor wrenched her arm from its socket.

Darunia's dark blue eyes scanned the battered Hylian carefully, and some of the furious joy died down from his gaze. He nodded once, as if confirming something to himself, and rested a hand on Linkali's shoulder. "You looked like my Brother in that tunic," he remarked casually. Lin smiled, a little uncomfortable. She knew that by _Brother_, Darunia had meant the Hero of Time.

"You aren't the first to say something like that," she told him. The Goron Sage nodded.

"When I first saw your eyes, I thought you might have been him," he rumbled in his heavy, booming voice. "But now that I see you more fully, you do not resemble him so strongly. That is good; though you carry his destiny and a part of his spirit, you are still your own person." Linkali, who had been uneasy at his mention of similarities between her and the Hero, relaxed at that.

"My name's Linkali—call me Lin," she informed him. "And I'll bet I don't have to introduce my partner, Navi." Darunia nodded in greeting to the blue fairy hovering between them. "Saria asked me to find you and bring you back to the Sacred Realm."

The Goron shook his head and chuckled, a sound like a boulder rolling down a smooth slope. "Ah, Saria," he murmured, and Lin heard the warmth of affection in his hearty voice. "Well, it wouldn't be good to keep her waiting." He squeezed the young Hylian's shoulder gently and tipped back his head. Linkali closed her eyes, and she felt herself begin to speed away through the air.

**That was waaaay longer than I intended it to be. (There were about three places where I could have cut it off and didn't, because I wanted to keep all of this information in the same chapter.) I promise that the next few chapters won't be so ridiculously long!**

**(1)Why, yes, I **_**did**_** just attempt to explain hammerspace. **


	15. 14: Ruto, Sage of Water

"Lin! Darunia!" Saria cheered, running to meet the two of them as they touched down on the scrubby grass. The young Sage's eyes were bright with happiness. "I was starting to get lonely!" She wrapped her arms around Linkali's waist and squeezed tightly, then broke free and held up her arms in front of the Goron—like a child begging to be picked up. Darunia laughed loudly as he swept the little girl up into his arms and hugged her close. Saria laughed as well, her voice clear as a stream, and wriggled free of the affectionate grasp; she clambered around until she was perched atop Darunia's head like a strange, giggling hat. She poked the Fire Sage's forehead. "Now that you're here, we can really get working!"

"Agreed." Darunia smiled. "Although, I think we would do our best work if one more were among us." Linkali, who had been looking around at the Sacred Realm (and not really seeing much change other than a multitude of resurrected saplings), snapped back to the two Sages. She grinned and reached for the pouch at her hip, dumping its contents into the palm of one hand. She held them out to Darunia.

"Pick!" she said playfully. The Goron chuckled and chose the blue Medallion from the bunch, handing if off to Lin. The girl rubbed her thumb over the raised design: six teardrops in the rough shape of a snowflake.

"The Sage of Water," Darunia told her, "Ruto of the Zoras. Saria has excellent control over her power"—at this, the Forest Sage tipped her head back proudly—"and I have a large supply of it…but Ruto is highly skilled at channeling that power and directing it to where it is most needed." He closed his eyes for a minute or two, and the youth knew he was seeking out his fellow Sage. "She is in the Ice Cavern."

"That's in Zoras' Domain," Navi pointed out. Lin nodded, pressing her lips together thoughtfully. She'd heard enough rumors of the place, and had even felt the draft when crossing Hyrule Field; the Zoras' old home was an arctic wasteland.

"Bundle up!" Saria told the two partners cheerfully. Darunia opened his eyes and looked down at the young Hylian before him. His gaze was calm, but searching.

"My shoulder is still a bit sore from our battle," he muttered. "Although I'm sure that's nothing compared to what you feel." He bent a bit lower, genuine concern filling her eyes; Saria leaned further over his head as well, looking a little worried. "Have I hurt you, little Brother?"

Lin glanced away, seeking to hide the pain in her eyes, and murmured, "Nothing that won't be gone in a few days." She rubbed her arms tenderly. "I think the worst part is going to be the soreness from slinging that hammer around."

"Hammer?" Saria echoed curiously, shifting forward even further. She slipped, tumbled, and landed on her backside with surprising lightness on the ground at Darunia's feet. "You mean the Megaton Hammer?" Linkali nodded and summoned the weapon, only to drop it as her weary arms flat-out refused to bear its weight. The hammer thudded to the ground mere inches away from Saria's boots; the Sage of Forest let out a quiet _eep_ of surprise and scuttled backwards. She looked up at Lin, then Darunia—all but laying the back of her head flat against her back to see the tall Goron's face. "I thought we were to place the Hero's weapons back in the Temples," she said.

"The Megaton Hammer was of personal significance to my people, and the legend attached to it brought them hope," Darunia replied calmly. "When we moved into the Dodongos' Cavern, I took it with us to keep their spirits strong…although, as time went on, and my people changed, it lost meaning and was forgotten."

"I also can't image you would want to go back into the Fire Temple," Linkali mused, crouching down to lift the hammer. She wrapped her hands around the shaft and heaved upwards, but failed before the head of the weapon even left the ground. She sighed.

"That was another factor," Darunia admitted. The Goron eyed her attempts for a moment, then walked around behind her and wrapped his hands gently over hers. Working together with him, Lin was able to lift the heavy weapon and banish it. The Sage of Fire rested his thick hands on her shoulders gently. "Little Brother, I think you should rest a while." Saria nodded in agreement.

Linkali looked from one Sage to the other. She had to admit: the offer was very appealing, and she was tempted to take them up on it. But she forced herself to shake her head. "I can't," she told them. "I…I need to get back to my village. My father will wonder where I am; he expects me to be home sometime today."

"Time flows differently here," the Sage of Forest pointed up, leaning forward to pat the top of the youth's boot reassuringly. "Days in the Sacred Realm are mere hours in Hyrule—you can sleep for as long as you need and still make it home in time."

Hesitantly, Lin agreed, and let Saria lead her to a secluded spot partway into the forest. Though still bare and dark, the skeletal trees seemed somewhat less menacing now than the last time she'd seen them. The young woman curled up on her side at the foot of one, sighing as she closed her eyes to rest. She felt Navi's soft hand on her face and smiled peacefully. She slept until the Forest Sage woke her with the news that it was nearing late afternoon in Hyrule and asked if Linkali would like to leave. The youth agreed, and was startled to discover that the worst of her aches were gone. (She had the sense that the two Sages had had something to do with that, but she wasn't about to pry.) She bid them both a fond farewell, and played the song that would send her back to Hyrule.

The land was golden, with the beginnings of an orange sunset, when the Hylian touched down behind a large boulder. She changed out of the Goron Tunic, swapping it for her familiar mantle, and started back home. Her path intersected with that of the traveler; though the young man was clearly curious to see her, he did not ask why she was out of the village alone. _Starting to get the idea of how Hyrule works, aren't you?_ Linkali thought, remembering with minimal fondness how curious and question-prone he used to be. They walked back to Kokoria Village in silence.

* * *

Linkali wished she could say that the rest of the evening had passed in a relatively normal fashion, but she would have been lying right through the gap between her front teeth.

For one thing, she'd had to intervene when Russie and Navi's first meeting almost ended with the cat leaping onto the fairy like she would a tender mouse. Admittedly, Navi _did_ bear a striking resemblance to one of the cat's favorite toys, a stuffed ball with a few feathers sticking out from behind, which bobbed and dangled from the end of a wooden rod; still, whether her intentions were play or prey, Russie had to be shut out of the room for Navi's sake. The red-brown tabby had meowed plaintively at the door for a few minutes before presumably padding off to find something to eat or someone to cuddle with.

Then, at dinner, the youth had been forced to come up with a slew of excuses. Why did she move her arms so stiffly? "I had to do a lot of…heavy lifting when I was working." Why did she smell like smoke? "They had a bonfire at Lonran last night, and I didn't get a chance to wash up before I came back." Why were the backs of her arms covered in so many bruises? (Linkali had unthinkingly worn a shirt without sleeves down to the table; Halvara had grabbed her daughter's arm, causing the girl to yelp in pain.) "I…had to share a bed with a chaotic sleeper the first night. It took me most of the night to accept the fact that I wasn't going to waken them, so I was a little battered by the time I decided to move to the floor. Ah, can you please stop pushing on that, Mom—it actually hurts a _lot._" Why was she leaving to go on _another_ errand for Aldez tomorrow? Wouldn't she rather stay home for a few days? "I'm going because Aldez asked me to and I enjoy helping her. I'd love to spend a few days in the village, but I just want to get this over with and go back to life as usual; besides, you don't break promises to old women."

That night's meeting with the Hyrulian Resistance Coalition hadn't gone _poorly_, but Lin had certainly been to ones that were far less uncomfortable. People were casting her strange glances from time to time, as if they saw something unusual in her; Linkali never quite knew _what_, though not for lack of trying. She did not raise any dissenting opinions or pass any criticisms, so the other members were not giving her scornful stares. The young woman did not realize it, for it was largely unconscious, but she was holding herself in a way that was very un-Hylian: chin level, eyes forward, shoulders back, hands at her sides, feet at shoulder width. It was the stance of a warrior, of someone who is confident in her ability to protect herself and others, of a person who prefers to confront her problems head-on; it was not the hunched, withdrawn stance of a King-fearing coward, and though none commented, all seemed to notice.

As she climbed into bed, Linkali plotted out her course for the next day. Zoras' Domain was to the north of Kokoria Village, but it was further east than Death Mountain—a fact that might shave time from her journey. Navi warned her that the walk up Zoras' River would be a long one, perhaps even longer than the hike up the mountainside; the girl reluctantly bowed to the fairy's superior knowledge. Either way, three days had been long enough to cross Hyrule Field, _and_ clear the Rogons' Cavern, _and_ defeat the corrupted Sage of Fire. Linkali was sure that breaking the seal on the Water Sage couldn't be much harder.

* * *

"Spirit? I know you're here somewhere!" Linkali called, her voice ringing through the hot, still air above the empty prairie. She turned her eyes to the empty blue sky stretching over her head, flicking her gaze left and right. _He's here,_ she told herself stubbornly. _He has to be here._ _I only dream this full when he's involved._ She tried to feel annoyed at the notion, but found that she could not; she was developing a heavy amount of respect and liking for her mysterious dream-teacher. The Hylian youth began pushing her way through the tall stems of grass, which whispered their seeded heads together like ghostly voices. Before she'd gone too far, though, Linkali double-checked her person very carefully; finding no weapons of any sort, she continued on her way.

Just as when she'd dreamed of this place before, she found the Spirit at the edge of the thick grass after hours of walking and calling out to him. He was standing in the center of a stone-dotted clearing. He raised a hand in greeting; Lin let out a quiet sigh of relief at the sight of him. For a while, she had almost been worried that he would not appear, leaving her to wander in the strange, baking-hot sunlight until she died. When she approached, the Spirit rested a gauntleted hand on her shoulder in a firm greeting. "Lin, it is wonderful to see you again," he told her, and Linkali could hear the happiness in his mellow, rich voice. "We have much more time tonight than the last time we met. I was hoping to practice sword-fighting techniques with you."

Without breaking eye contact—or, so she assumed; it was difficult to be sure, since she couldn't actually see the man's eyes—Lin reached for her left hip and rested her hand on the grip of her sword. She'd been somewhat expecting to feel it there, even though she hadn't had it with her until that point. (Or had she? Linkali was almost completely sure the answer to that was _no_, but some little part of her remained doubtful.) The Warrior's Spirit reached for his own blade—a massive, two-handed sword that looked as if it weighed as much as the Megaton Hammer did. "If only the Master Sword were whole," he said, somewhat wistfully. "I would like to see how you fight with that legendary blade in your hands." The armored man held the sword out in front of his body, angling it to the side. "Well, there is no use wishing for things such as that. Now—strike! I wish to see how much you already know and what you are already capable of doing."

Linkali obeyed, drawing her own sword and lunging to attack. Though something told her that this man was close to if not actually a master swordsman, she knew that she was not too shabby herself. When she practiced swordfighting with HyReCo, she had received much praise for her skill. Fighting through to find the Sage of Fire had given her some extra practice, but Lin knew there had to be some glaring inadequacies to her technique. Still, she was more than eager to try sparring with the Warrior's Spirit.

The two blades met with a jarring _clang!_ that sent powerful shockwaves buzzing through the girl's hand and arm, and nearly caused her to release her grip on the sword. Linkali dropped to the ground in a crouch and lifted her weapon sideways over her head to block the hefty, downward-sweeping strike the Spirit dealt. She sprang away, stretching back to her full height as she did so, and ran in for another attack. The Warrior's Spirit was ready. He watched her approach carefully, shifting his feet just slightly as he stood, and countered her swipe with a blow that all but knocked the weapon from her grasp. He then lashed out with a cry, catching her on the shoulder and sending her tumbling with the force of his assault. Linkali looked at her throbbing arm, fearing the worst, and was startled to see that no blood had been shed; he hadn't even cut into her clothing!

She looked up when the man said her name, and saw that he had sheathed his sword and was offering her his hand. The assistance the Spirit gave her was not entirely unlike Darunia's. There was great strength in his arm (perhaps not the potentially bone-crushing power of the Fire Sage), but he was gentle.

"You have no need to fear injury from me, Lin," he said kindly as the mystified girl rubbed her shoulder. "I would never harm you."

There was something in his words that seemed to set the Hylian's mind even more at ease, and she had to wonder how that could be. Why was she developing such a strange, swift trust in this man? This was only the fourth time their paths had crossed; why did she get the strange feeling that he had always been a part of her life in some way, much like her parents or Bartal? Linkali felt suspicion begin to grow in her heart, and she closed her eyes until the feeling passed in an attempt to keep the Warrior's Spirit from seeing. When she opened them, he had stepped back and drawn his sword again.

"Now that you know what will happen if a blow lands," he told her, "I hope that we may continue your training." Lin unsheathed her sword, grinning feistily at her teacher. With a shout, she leapt in and swung down with her blade.

How long their exercises continued for, Linkali had no idea. There didn't seem to be any notion of time in this dreamscape; the blazing sun overhead did not move through the sky to indicate the passage of real hours, or even days. The Hylian youth was out of breath— and sore from both the numerous blunted slashes her opponent had landed on her _and_ from the number of times she had been knocked aside—when the Spirit called for an end to their training for the night. Lin was astonished by the armored warrior's speed and strength. No one in HyReCo fought like he did! They sparred slowly, hesitant to attack a friend; they always seemed fearful of the weapon in their grasp, wielding it as if it might suddenly leap around in their hands and attack them. The Warrior's Spirit threw blows as if the sparring match were a real fight and his life were truly in peril, and the blade in his hands seemed to be an extension of his arms. The girl who had faced him was in awe of his graceful strikes and his smooth maneuvers, and she almost felt as if she had learned a little bit of his uncanny fluidity.

Lin sheathed her sword at her hip, and the Spirit did the same to his own blade across his back. He took her hand in his, causing the sun-baked field around them to shimmer and disappear into shadow. The Warrior's Spirit laughed softly. "Be safe, Lin," he told her, though he did not sound as if he thought she was in any danger. "Another night, we will meet again." Linkali nodded in agreement, happy despite her tired and sore muscles. She sensed a smile under the Spirit's faceguard, and the man let go of her hand. She fell away from him through the surrounding darkness, letting sleep soothe her body and mind.

When she awoke the next morning, her sword arm was stiff and tired, as if she had truly spent the night sparring with another.

* * *

Linkali set off the next morning at daybreak, alone save for Navi; a pack filled with food and extra layers of clothes was settled on her back. Kokoria Village was quiet under the dark gray sky, which already held the promise of being an extremely rare, nearly-clear day in Hyrule. Lin almost wished she could stay home for it; weather such as that was uncommon in the land, to be enjoyed with friends and savored for as long as it lasted. Such days were usually warmer than most, and some Hylians went about in short sleeves. The young woman sighed wistfully, thinking for a moment of a hillboarding run with Bartal, or perhaps a romp around the village with Talina; grudgingly, she pushed the thoughts aside, reminding herself of the mission at hand. _Besides, I can always have my fun after I find the Sage of Water._

The sun was not up yet, and Hyrule was still drowsing quietly under the cloudy, predawn sky. The morning air was cool, touched with a teasing hint of the warmth that was sure to follow the sun's rise into the sky. Crickets buzzed lazily in the grass outside Kokoria's gates as Linkali crept past them on silent boots. The gates were locked, but Lin had her family's key with her—given to her by her father. (Every household in the village had a key to the gates.) The young Hylian deftly unlocked the only thing standing between her and the next piece of her mission, and stepped through, attempting to close the gate behind her. Something else pushed it back open again. Linkali turned and saw Bartal pass through the open gate, grinning broadly at her.

"You forgot to tell me when we were going to leave!" he hissed, keeping his voice low in the early morning stillness. His amber-brown eyes glittered with mischief and fun, bright in the darkness of morning. "Where are we off to today, Lin?"

"W-we?" the girl echoed, stammering slightly in her surprise. The boy nodded and turned around so that his friend could see the pack he'd brought with him, gesturing emphatically at it with both thumbs. She almost laughed to see him—glad to have her friend so close after her three-day leave from Kokoria Village.

"You've been going off on your own for a while now," Bartal told her, turning back around and crossing his arms over his chest sullenly. "I get so bored when you're not around. I can't go hillboarding—it's no fun without anyone to show off in front of, and you're the only one who will go with me. I can't do walljumps, and random acts of wanton mischief are best done in pairs…" He shrugged. "Hell, just about _everything_ I do can only be done when you're around."

"Everything _reckless_, at any rate," Linkali retorted, smirking. Her male friend smiled, shrugging guiltily. Lin's face fell as the seriousness of the matter struck her. As much as she loved being with Bartal—as much as she wanted to show him the world outside the village—she knew that he could not come with her. He, like everyone else in Kokoria, could not know what she truly did when she was out 'working' for Zelda. _Aldez._ She sighed sadly. "Bartal, this is something I need to do alone. I'm sorry…I don't really like the chore that it's going to be, but I have to do it anyway. Besides, you…" She trailed off, clenching a loose fist awkwardly.

Bartal frowned slightly. "You could have just said _that_ right off," he muttered, referring to her unspoken words. He didn't sound _hurt_, so much as…disappointed. There was a note of grudging acceptance there, too. "I mean, it's a valid point, and I'm not going to complain, because it's true. We both know that it would only make me…well, a liability for you." He sighed.

"You could always try hanging around with Harlan and Gokali," the youth offered tentatively. Though she hated herself for it, she knew that she had won the argument with her unspoken reference; Bartal was staying home today.

The Hylian boy shrugged. "I dunno. Harlan's a swell enough guy, but he's different when he's with _her_," he replied. "And Gokali hates me about as much as she hates _you_."

The words _Gokali doesn't hate me_ formed and died on Linkali's tongue before she could even take in the breath with which to say them. Gokali—a firebrand of a young woman three years Lin's senior with hair the color of embers—_did_ hate the younger Hylian. Lin was fairly sure it had something to do with the fact that she had in her younger years developed a rather strong crush on Gokali's fiercely-defended betrothed, Harlan. Harlan, who was four years older than Linkali, had been aware of the crush, and had even treated the younger girl like a cherished little sister in an attempt to change her feelings about him. It had worked. The two Hylians' relationship was certainly platonic now, though Gokali still seemed to think that Lin was a threat to her happiness with her lover. (She also seemed to blame Bartal for not having tried to charm the girl away from Harlan.)

Linkali was shaking these thoughts away as Bartal continued, "I'll find someone to suffer me, fool that I am." He sounded sad enough, but the corners of his mouth were twitching as if to clamp down on a smile. "Maybe some other day, yeah?"

"Yes." Lin nodded, embracing her friend tightly. "I really am sorry about today, Bartal. I'll make it up to you somehow, I promise."

"You'd better." The Hylian boy stepped back into the village, holding the gates shut while Linkali locked them. She looked up into her friend's face, knowing that he would clearly see her sadness at leaving him behind. There was sadness in his expression as well, and it shared room with a touch of shame.

Once they were safely past the village, Navi zipped out from the girl's green mantle and bobbed a few feet ahead of her. The fairy's pale-blue glow only served to add further detail to the lightening world around her. "How did you convince him to stay behind?" she asked Lin curiously. "You started to say something, and it was like he read your mind. What were you about to say to him?"

Linkali sighed, glancing over her shoulder, half-expecting to see the boy behind her. "Bartal is…" She trailed off. It felt so strange to have to tell someone of this; everyone in Kokoria Village already knew it, and it wasn't something generally explained to outsiders. "Bartal is a coward," she said, throwing the sentence out before trepidation stopped her again, "and I don't mean that in a cruel way, because, truly, he _is_ my closest friend. He's not completely fearful; quite the opposite, I think the only thing he actually _fears_ is the Evil King. He always wants what is right, and always tries to do what is right…but, fairly often, he finds himself afraid of fighting for it. He hesitates in the face of duty, reliably so—most people in the village brand him as a coward, though they still love him just as much."

"Sounds like it's a good thing we left him back at the village, then," Navi commented. Linkali nodded, although she found herself wishing that the boy _was_ coming along with them. As difficult as his fearfulness of action would make things, his familiar presence would have given the girl an even further boosted sense of confidence.

* * *

Linkali was both startled and amused when she felt the icy draft from Zoras' Domain strike her. It was so strange to feel both the warmth of the sun in the cloud-spotted sky _and_ the chill from the frozen world behind the thundering waterfall. Navi bobbed in front of the roaring waters, flicking drops of moisture off her wings from time to time. She shivered, a motion that was accompanied by a sound like a small, silver handbell chiming. "I find it strange that the Zoras' home would still be frozen," the fairy said. "The only reason it iced over in the first place was because of the curse on the Water Temple, which Link broke when he defeated Morpha."

"Ganon might have done this," Lin pointed out mildly, stooping down to pick away the thick furring of moss that covered the stone bridge on which she stood. "After all, a frozen adversary is not much of an adversary. In keeping them under the ice, the King wouldn't have to worry about the Zoras rebelling."

"That's so cruel, though." Navi sounded horrified. Linkali shrugged.

"Cruel, yes, undoubtedly so…but it _does_ make perfect sense." The girl almost pointed out that if she were in the same position and condition as Ganon, she would do the same…but Navi was already shell-shocked enough; Lin didn't want to add to it. "Do you think the song of the Royal Family will still open the path?" she asked. The fairy hummed a little lower.

"It did the last time I was here," Navi replied. "And the waters were frozen then, too. There's only one way to find out, Lin. Why don't you try? You know how to play the song, don't you?"

"Yes." Linkali dusted scraps of damp moss from her hands and pulled the flute out from under her mantle. She stood up straight. "Zelda taught me before I started in on this whole quest." The young woman's fingers crept over the holes on her instrument slowly, seeking out their proper placement before her lips touched the mouthpiece. The simple notes flowed out into the late afternoon air smoothly and echoed off the dark gray stone around the falls. Lin and Navi waited, both a little nervous in the face of possible failure.

The waterfall rumbled down from Zoras' Fountain, its spray licking the faces of the two travelers standing before it. Slowly, its waters began to part down the middle, like a seam being ripped apart. The flow slackened and the mighty roar of the tumbling water softened to a gentle murmur. Linkali leaned forward with interest; her eyes widened when she saw the dark opening that had lurked hidden behind the waterfall. She glanced at Navi and hopped lightly across the gap. As she walked through the short passageway, she heard the waters behind her begin to pick up force once again.

Though the sun was beginning to set over Hyrule, it was still high enough in the sky to light up Zoras' Domain. Linkali wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the chilly air that filled the massive, hollow space. Suddenly, she was glad that she had pulled on all of her extra layers of clothing before she had calmed the waterfall and entered this place. The youth didn't want to imagine what it would have been like to step into the icy cavern with only a single layer of clothes to keep warm; even with three shirts, two pairs of pants, and her mantle, she was still cold.

Despite her chilled body, Lin couldn't help the growing sense of amazement that filled her as she gazed around Zoras' Domain. Her footsteps, slow and deliberate, seemed to echo throughout the huge cave as she walked to the edge of the stone ridge at the end of the tunnel. At the far end, she could see a massive waterfall—frozen completely in its tracks and bound by a hundred years' ice. The ground beneath her ledge was also frozen solid. The Hylian youth spotted an old ladder leading down to the frozen water, and after glancing at her fairy partner, she started down the surprisingly-sturdy wood.

Linkali found that moving on the ice was both somewhat frightening and somewhat amusing. She could walk well enough, and even running was not so hard…but every time she stopped, her boots would slide just a little further across the floor. Frequently, the girl would lose her balance; her feet would fly out from under her, sending her crashing to the icy, hard ground with a yelp of surprise and pain. Steadily, though, she began to get a feel for the slick ground and was able to walk for longer periods of time without slipping and falling. She learned how to shift her weight when she slid so that she was less likely to lose her footing. Lin figured she should know how to move across the frozen ground, since she reasoned that a place called the "Ice Cavern" would have nothing but. Navi watched these exercises without commenting (although she did laugh whenever the young Hylian took a particularly spectacular tumble).

Lin had been skating and slipping for nearly an hour before chance decided to drop an unsavory reminder of her mission into her lap. The girl did a running slide—a move that was done more for fun than anything else—and brought herself up short just seconds before impact with the frozen waterfall. She used the columns of still water for support as she hauled herself back to her feet. Her blood was warm with the thrill of ice-sliding and the heat of exercise. She was just about to ask Navi if the fairy had seen her impressive slip when something dark caught her eye.

The ice around the rest of the cave was cloudy, but near the waterfall it was crystal clear, and the little dark patch stood out quite clearly. Lin knelt back down, wiping away the small mound of ice shavings her slide had cut up. The happy warmth that had filled her body vanished, to be replaced with a chill far deeper than even that of the frigid cavern. The youth flailed clumsily on the sleek ice, staggering halfway to her feet before falling onto her backside again. She crab-walked frantically backwards, her dark eyes wide with horror. The blue fairy zipped around worriedly; Linkali pointed without a word at what she had seen.

A face in the ice.

Her breath coming and leaving in rapid pants, the young Hylian crawled slowly back on her hands and knees to where she had seen the face. It was still there, a few inches below the surface; she hadn't imagined it. Massive, indigo eyes stared up fearfully at Linkali, and the mouth beneath them was opened wide in a cry of terror long since stifled. Bubbles were frozen into the ice around its lips. The blue-tattooed face beneath the ice was as shapely and fine as any adult's, but the smallness of it suggested that it did not belong to a grown creature. A small, thin-fingered hand reached up beside it, stretching out to the crystalline wall and the living girl that knelt atop it; its palm was flat against the ice. Lin rested her hand against that of the Zora child, silent with horror and sorrow. _What did you see?_ she wondered. _What did you last think before the ice froze you in place and time? _Looking closer at the Zora's face, Linkali spotted tiny ripples in the ice around its eyes—hot tears of panic, offered up to the water as it froze fast around them. She shut her eyes tightly, shuddering with cold and dread.

"Lin?" Navi whispered, coming to rest on the girl's shoulder. "Lin?"

Without turning her head, Linkali glanced at the fairy out of the corner of her eyes. She gave the frozen Zora child one last, long look that held both sympathy and an unspoken promise, then pushed herself to her feet once more. When she spoke, her voice was hard and determined. "Let's get to that Cavern, Navi," she muttered.

* * *

The Ice Cavern was even colder than Zoras' Domain had been; the frigid chill seeped past the layered clothing of the girl traversing the snow-covered floor, stealing away her warmth from the running she'd done across the solid sheet of ice to reach this place. _If this place truly is frozen because of the Evil King's power,_ Linkali thought grimly as she flexed her numb fingers, _then he's definitely gone overboard. The Zoras are already under ice; this place is colder than it needs to be. I wouldn't be surprised at all if I have to thaw out the Sage of Water before returning her Medallion!_ At Navi's instruction, Lin used her sword to cut down the glittering blue columns of ice that barred her path, keeping a weather eye out for any loose icicles from the roof of the cave. (Though they shattered like glass—rather than impaling her, as she might fear—when they fell onto the girl's back or shoulders, the impact still came as a harsh blow, and would send Linkali staggering away painfully.) The ice burst around the blade, throwing up blue shards that twinkled and glinted like pieces of a broken star. That strange imagery resonated with the young Hylian for reasons she didn't quite understand. She shook it off, telling herself she would work it out later.

Linkali walked slowly through the tunnels, shivering slightly and listening to the hollow sound of the wind outside howling distantly around her. One numb-fingered hand stroked the white-frosted, ice-slicked wall as she made her way deeper into the frozen cavern; the other hand remained on the sword sheathed behind her, crouched over the hilt like a wary animal. Navi bobbed beside her, shivering and shaking with the cold. Linkali smiled gently and pulled the collar of her mantle to the side; her fairy companion accepted the unspoken offer and zipped down into the fabric, settling herself on the girl's collarbone to warm up. The Hylian continued walking, her boots crunching softly on the snow beneath them.

Linkali's shivering worsened as the chill in the air robbed her of more and more of her body heat. She shivered and sniffled as her icy surroundings made her nose run. From time to time, she would pause, gathering her arms and legs closer to the midline of her body and clutching her upper arms tightly; more often than not, these stops to try and conserve heat ended in a sneeze that sent her stumbling for balance.

By the time evening had passed over to night, Lin was walking through the frozen caves on numb legs, almost too cold to shiver. She paused for a few moments in the arch of what felt like the tenth hallway she had traveled down that day. The walls glowed a cold, unearthly blue as the scant moonlight from the outside world bounced its way from sheet to glistening sheet of ice, lighting the Ice Cavern with a dim luminance; the light was the color of a glacier's heart, furthering the frigidity of the caves. Linkali felt a single, almost convulsive shudder wrack her body, causing her cold-stiffened arms to jerk briefly. "H-h-hate th-those," she stuttered softly when Navi, who was a fiercely warm weight on her shoulder, voiced her concern. **(1)** It was the first thing she'd said to her partner in a few hours; her chattering teeth made normal speech all but impossible.

"It's getting late, Lin. Why don't you look for someplace you can curl up and rest?" the fairy asked. "Maybe once you settle down for a bit, you'll be able to build up some more body heat."

_Says the creature whose metabolism burns hotter than Din's fury,_ Linkali thought grimly, a wry smile straining at the frozen corner of her mouth. Once Navi had sought shelter under the youth's many layers of clothing, her little body had grown steadily warmer and warmer, until she was practically burning a hole in Linkali's shoulder. Lin's only regret was that the chill of the caverns stole away that heat before it could spread beyond the shoulder on which Navi rested. She shivered and nodded, figuring that the fairy—having seen this place and traveled through it once before—would know best.

Lin chose a small chamber that appeared to be out of the way of any creatures who might wish her harm. With fumbling fingers, she pulled something out of her pack for Navi to eat, not feeling hungry herself, and settled down to rest. At the end of the room where she lay curled stood a platform upon which burned a bizarre blue flame. Linkali had never seen blue fire—outside of flickers of the color caused by burning certain kinds of wood—but her fairy friend assured her that it was harmless, safe even. The blue fire did not throw heat like an ordinary flame, but instead radiated a kind of gentle coolness. The young woman was so chilled that even its cool touch felt somewhat warm to her; she cuddled up as close to the platform as she dared and closed her eyes.

* * *

Sleeping near the blue fire had likely saved Linkali from freezing in her sleep, for as the night wore on the cavern grew colder and the cool flames did provide some negligible amount of warmth. However, the longer she spent near the fire, the less warming the cool air it radiated became. By the time night was starting to shift into morning, Lin couldn't decide if she was any warmer than she had been while wandering the Cavern earlier. (Even if she couldn't feel it, she actually _was_ slightly less chilled.) The night had been an uneasy one for the Hylian youth; she either slept so thinly that the snapping of the fire easily jolted her awake, or so deeply that Navi panicked and started screaming in her ear to bring her back to consciousness.

As midmorning approached, she awoke shivering and had to count her extremities to make certain she still had the same number she'd entered the Ice Cavern with. Her stomach was roaring with hunger; she had last eaten on the walk from Kokoria to Zoras' Domain. Though her chattering teeth made chewing somewhat difficult, Linkali managed to finish off the remainder of the sandwich she had pulled out for Navi the previous evening. Small crystals of ice had formed on the edges of the bread, but Lin didn't exactly care. She was already digging her teeth into the inside of her cheeks with every other bite; what did a few more scratches from the frost matter? Later on, she would look back at just how numb she had been—not only physically, but mentally as well—and be absolutely stunned. For here and now, though, the girl's mind was about as unfeeling as the rest of her.

Stumbling through the rest of the glacier-blue caves, Linkali spoke to Navi from time to time with her thoughts, as she was unable to fully enunciate a sentence; she was stuttering so badly with cold that her jaws were unable to get out a single word in under several minutes. Usually, her questions were simple, such as asking the fairy if she knew where they were or checking to see if Navi needed anything to eat. As the day worked on, though, Lin began to ask herself more questions than she asked her partner—and it was always the same one: _Where have I seen all this before?_ The Ice Cavern had been described in the Hero's story, and the passages Linkali remembered matched up very closely to the things she was seeing now.

The youth might have been somewhat numb to the world, but deep down she couldn't shake the feeling that the halls through which she walked were familiar to her. Their stony sides were frosted with ice the color of autumn morning mist, crystalline and glassy; the icicle stalactites that dangled from the ceiling were painted in rich, variegated blues—Lin was sure she had seen only half of those shades before in her life. The further she trekked on her cold legs, the more the feeling of familiarity grew, until it was eerie and unnerving. Once or twice, she had stopped to rest her hand on the silver-and-white walls; she could not feel the precise texture of the ice, but the rise and fall of it gave her a haunting sense of déjà-vu. She had seen these things before, but not in her own imagination—she was sure of that.

Somehow, Linkali felt she had looked at these walls, these icicles, these hallways with her own two eyes, and not that she had simply imagined them after reading a story that contained them. (She didn't remember the exact details of how she had envisioned the Ice Cavern, but she knew it did not match exactly with what she saw now.) Lin was far from the most imaginative Hylian in the land; her staunch refusal of anything fictional and her craving for facts and explanations was proof of that. She didn't even _dream_ this vividly, except perhaps when the Warrior's Spirit was involved.

Linkali paused as that thought occurred to her. The hallway she was walking down was made of the same ice-frosted stone as every other passage in these Caverns, and its floor was covered with the same crisp, virgin snow that lined every other hall. The blue-gleaming icicles rising from the ground and dangling from the ceiling were no less beautiful than those anywhere else in the caves. And yet, here in this stretch of hallway, the sense of familiarity seemed to double. The more she pursued the thought of the Spirit from her dreams, the stronger it grew. Lin frowned slightly, forcing her frozen muscles to respond in an outward display of the suspicion she felt.

The passage dead-ended, though the young Hylian could see the outline of a door at the place where the gray-white ice deepened into crystalline blue. Still shivering fiercely with cold, she reached out a hand and placed it on the rectangle. The door slid up under her touch, allowing Linkali entrance to a room that had surely remained untouched since the days when the Hero of Time had explored this same cave.

Glowing, cerulean crystals—whether of ice or stone Linkali was not sure—spiked the ground like strange trees and studded the black walls like stars. The snow beneath her feet was dappled with refracted light, painted with indigos and greens and violets. The Hylian youth walked reverently into the room, her eyes taking in the beauty around her hungrily. She reached the middle of the crystal chamber, shaking her head in pure disbelief, her icy body forgotten for the moment. For a brief time, her heart was filled with nothing but wondrous awe and amazement at the rare sight around her. Then, just as quickly as those feelings filled her, dark suspicion and realization shoved them out. If she hadn't been clutching her arms to her body in a feeble attempt to stay warm, Linkali would have stuck her hands cockily on her hips.

_The Warrior's Spirit brought me here the last time we spoke,_ she thought, biting at her numb, cold-cracked lower lip. _I'd never lose memories of a place like this—it's too beautiful to ever forget. But how could he show me this place? No one but the Hero of Time would have come here. Unless…_

Her train of thought dropped off there as another violent sneeze racked her shivering body. Linkali was caught off-guard, and she stumbled clumsily forward a few steps before regaining her coordination. She stood there, shuddering and shaking in the icy chill of the frozen cave, listening to the sounds of her sneeze bouncing off the blue-studded walls around her. A soft crunching, rustling sound drew her attention from the distant corner, where a stand of tall crystals reached for the glittering ceiling. Something was moving and shifting behind them, rising from the ground and shuffling in the girl's direction. _"Coming in and poking around,"_ a gravelly voice grumbled. _"Of course, it won't be him. He'd never come looking for me. Not anymore. He's probably found a finless girl to love."_ Navi pressed her burning cheek against Lin's cold neck; the youth could feel all of her partner's tiny muscles tensing warily against her skin.

The creature behind the crystals was slouching into view now. Linkali reached for her sword with bumbling, numb fingers that slipped off the hilt numerous times before managing to wrap themselves around it. She began backing away stiffly, her clumsy boots slipping in the crisp snow.

The miserable being stepped more fully into view, and the sight of it drew twin gasps of shock and disgust from Hylian and fairy. The creature appeared female—at least, it had what _looked_ like breasts—but it was a twisted and warped femininity. Her body was long and sleek of form, though her pale gray skin seemed to cling to her bones with unnatural tightness; she also had a rather impressive potbelly. Fan-like fins trailed down from her elbows and hips, but they were tattered and scarred from frostbite, and their dappled patterns had deepened to an ugly greenish-black. Her fingers were webbed, but blunted and gnarled by a combination of old age and bitter cold. Dark purple eyes burned from sunken sockets, wary and hunted as they darted over the body of the young Hylian standing in the crystal room. _"What's the use in trying?"_ the ugly creature grunted softly. Her voice was rough-edged and cracked, a sound of something that had once been beautiful and had fallen into disrepair over time._ "Love only hurts you. I gave it to him, but I never saw him again. He hates me, I know it. He's always hated me. He only wanted me to give it to him; that's why he pretended to like me."_

Linkali felt her breath freeze in her aching chest, while her heart began to hammer against her ribs harshly. She backed shakily away from the hideous creature as it hobbled and limped towards her. Briefly, her mind flicked to how different Darunia had looked before his Medallion had been returned to him. Was this the Sage of Water, Ruto of the Zoras, corrupted by Ganon's dark power over the years? Lin relayed this thought to Navi. The fairy shook her head.

"I don't think so," she answered weakly. "Ruto is—she was…She would never let her appearance degenerate like that."

The twisted, gruesome creature kept muttering to herself and advancing on Linkali, no matter how much the girl tried to shamble away. Lin kept her icy hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of her sword, hesitant to strike and unsure of how to stop the ugly being's advances. She held out her twitching right hand in front of her, a universal gesture of 'come no closer.' "S-s-s-s-st-s-s-st-st," she hissed timorously, unable to fully articulate the word _stop_ through her chattering teeth_._ It didn't seem to matter, for the strange creature gave up the chase after making Linkali walk around roughly half the room backwards. She sighed despondently and let her finned arms fall limply at her sides. There she stood—her broad, triangular head low, her dark eyes dull with grief and pain. Lin hesitated, shivering with cold and a little bit of revulsion.

"_He never loved me anyway!"_ she wailed, throwing back her head like a howling wolf.

"I retract my previous statement," Navi whispered. "That's Ruto." There was an edge of grim amusement in the fairy's tone of voice, but Linkali's mind was too numb to find the humor in her friend's words.

"_You almost look like him,"_ Ruto snarled softly, her shifty eyes centered on the shuddering Hylian before her. _"Why are you here? Did he send you? Why? Does he want my forgiveness for abandoning me, after I gave him my people's greatest treasure? Or is he merely trying to shove it in my face that he's found love while I—the last of the Zoras—must sit alone in this cursed cave?"_ The twisted old Zora eyed Linkali calculatingly. Some of the suspicion left her hunted eyes. _"Well, he was my fiancé, and though you are in a way illegitimate, you are also, in a sense, my daughter."_ She shuffled forward and rested a warped hand on Lin's shoulder. The girl found she could not hold contact with the corrupted Sage's crazed, burning eyes for more than a few seconds at a time.

Ruto shoved her down; Linkali tumbled to the snow gracelessly, hissing softly in pain as she accidentally smashed her frozen fingers underneath the sword hilt when she fell. The deranged Zora did not seem to notice, though there did not appear to have been any malice in her forceful push. _"Be comfortable, daughter. I have much I want to tell you. Has your father explained the intricacies of my relationship with him?"_

Linkali fumbled with the cords of the pouch containing the remaining Sage Medallions. Her numb fingers could not undo the know; Navi waited until Ruto's back was turned before leaving the warmth of her partner's collar, and dug through the small bag until she managed to find the Water Medallion. She carried it in both arms over to Lin's hand and helped the frozen Hylian curl her unresponsive fingers around it. The fairy lingered there a bit longer, rubbing Linkali's ice-cold hand until some semblance of feeling returned to her fingers. Then, nearly as cold as the girl was, Navi darted back into the warmth of Lin's many layers.

The youth could do nothing but listen as the corrupted Water Sage rambled on and on about her love for the boy who had become the Hero of Time; she could not interrupt because she could not speak without stammering unintelligibly. In the kind of detail that only someone who had spent a century and a half in isolation could give, Ruto regaled Lin of the story of her time spent in Jabu-Jabu's belly and of Link's daring rescue; she neither noticed nor reacted to her audience's frigid revulsion. From time to time, her eyes would lock with Linkali's, and the young Hylian would find herself deeply disturbed by the wild, insane light that burned in those violet eyes. Her trembling, loose fist would close around the Water Medallion when that happened, as if she were trying to seek strength from the power that had once made this mad Zora a Sage.

Hours ticked past with agonizing slowness, though for the frozen Hylian, time in the Ice Cavern had always been a little bit skewed. Ruto seemed to have no end of things to say, some of them coherent, some of them utter insanity. She would break off in the middle of a sentence about how she had once loved to swim in the warm morning waters of Zoras' Domain, snapping a sudden threat to Linkali's mother for stealing away the man the former Sage had loved, and then continue along as if nothing had happened; far more disturbing were the times when she would simply stop speaking actual words, instead babbling incoherently in a sing-song voice that sometimes turned rough with hatred. Lin shivered and waited in icy silence, feeling as if she were freezing to the snow on the floor. The Medallion in her hand seemed to pulse subtly with energy, as if the power contained within were begging to be returned to the one who had once wielded it.

The evening was drawing near when Linkali could take no more. The Hylian youth struggled to push herself to her feet, her whole body racked with endless shivers. "H-h-h-hey, R-R-R-R-Ruto," she stuttered, her cold jaws not responding as well as she might have liked them to. The twisted, ugly creature looked up at her curiously. "Th-th-th-th-th-th—_think fast!_" Somehow, by the grace of a merciful deity, she managed to spit out the words before her chattering teeth could skew them. Before Ruto could question her, Lin drew back her arm and hurled the Medallion at the corrupted Sage's face. The blue, coin-like object struck the Zora square in the middle of the forehead and bounced off. Ruto erupted into a sudden, vicious screech of indignation—the sound of which some might liken to the call of a swooping hawk…

…and suddenly fell silent, her mouth hanging agape. Her dark eyes turned down to the Medallion resting in her upturned palm. In the tense seconds that followed, the blue object melted and dissolved into her silver skin. Blinding light burst forth from the Zora's deformed body, soaking the crystal room in harsh, white light. Linkali squinted against it, a smile of grim satisfaction tugging at the frozen corner of her mouth.

When she opened her eyes, the Sage of Water was standing in front of her, beautiful and sane once more.

"Well!" Ruto declared, patting at her arms and body with an air of satisfaction. "Isn't it good to finally have _that_ horrid affair over with!" She smiled softly, shaking her head in wonder. "It's amazing how quickly living alone can warp a body's mind, isn't it? Being on my own…Just dreadful—but it's finally over with." She looked the young woman over, and a glint of approval appeared in her eyes. "You're the one breaking all of our seals, then? You'll do, I suppose. Obviously no noble or royal blood in you, but that hasn't stopped you or slowed you down any, from what I can tell. " Her words were brisk and casual enough, but Linkali could tell that she was more grateful and admiring than she let on. Somehow, she found she liked the Sage of Water, as different as she was from Saria and Darunia.

Saria and Darunia? Linkali's eyes widened, and she pointed to Ruto. "W-w-w-w-w," she began, and the Zora cut her off gently.

"I know." She held out a thin-fingered hand. "Here—I'll get us out of this wretched place. What's your name? I don't think I ever gave you a chance to tell me."

"L-L-L-L-L-L—"

"On second thought, let's wait until you've warmed up before you answer that question." Ruto grinned mischievously. "I doubt I have to tell you to close your eyes for this. I can sense the others that have been unsealed so far. Knowing the kid, she probably let you find out about warping eyes-open the hard way." She wrapped her hand around Linkali's, and light began to glow around them. "Ready?"

Lin closed her eyes and felt her feet leave the ground.

* * *

Ruto released Lin's hand a few moments after the two of them touched down on the grass of the Sacred Realm. Linkali opened her eyes to see Saria running enthusiastically towards her, with Darunia striding up purposefully after her. The little Sage of Forest bounced around Ruto's feet like an eager puppy, throwing her arms around the Zora's legs in a hug of greeting, only to dance back before the other Sage could lay a hand on her. "Ruto, you're freezing!" she complained, striking her hands on her hips. "Your scales feel like ice!" Turning her head, she added, "And poor Lin looks even worse off."

"Lin!" Ruto repeated, snapping her fingers with comprehension. "So _that's _what you were trying to get at! _That's_ your name!"

"Actually, it's Lin_kali_," Saria corrected, pointing a finger in the air in a matter-of-fact gesture. "But she told us she likes to be called Lin." She glanced approvingly at the Hylian youth, who was clutching her upper arms and shivering fiercely, despite having moved to a much warmer environment. "Frankly, I think it's a nice way to shorten her name."

Linkali would have loved to ask them to kindly stop talking about her as if she were as mute as Zelda, but her mouth could not cooperate. She shivered and shook in silence until a pair of strong, fiercely warm arms embraced her from behind and lifted her off the ground. She turned her head shakily to see Darunia's smiling face. It was he who had pulled her up, and he had her pinned tightly (but not painfully so) to his chest. The quivering Hylian youth rested her cheek against the Goron Sage's shoulder, startled by the incredible heat that radiated from his thick skin. A happy sigh shuddered out of her. "Y-y-y-y-you're w-w-w-w-war-r-m-m-m," she murmured jerkily.

Darunia's grin broadened, and he nodded in confirmation of the fact. Linkali felt the icy chill of the Caverns being pushed out of her by the gentle heat of the Fire Sage's heart. She blinked, feeling the trembling in her arms and legs beginning to slow to a stop. "R-r-really w-warm," she stammered, though her words were less choppy now as her muscles gradually regained their warmth. The sudden shift in temperatures made her feel somewhat giddy, and she giggled. "Wow—that's unbelievable!" Darunia nodded again, clearly amused by the Hylian in his arms. He held her for a few moments more, then set her back on the ground with a booming, bass laugh.

Lin shook out her arms, clenching and unclenching her hands. Her fingers were alive and buzzing with warmth; her whole body felt renewed and revitalized. She laughed and wrapped her arms around the Fire Sage's rough-skinned body. He reciprocated, once again hauling her off the ground in the embrace. "It's good to see you so alive, little Brother!" he rumbled happily. "You're so much prettier when you're happy, you know."

Linkali grinned. Her father had said that same thing to her more than once in her memory. Darunia certainly reminded her of him; both of them were perfect gentle giants with a hearty laugh and a strong embrace. Saria's boundless energy reminded her strongly of Talina, and Ruto's pragmatic ways of speaking and calm affection were reminiscent of Halvara. Lin realized that she could find something to love and respect in all of the Sages she had unsealed thus far. They all reminded her strongly of people she loved, and at the same time, were refreshingly different; they understood her in ways other Hylians could not, for they knew her as the Incarnation of the Hero of Time. The youth couldn't keep a smile off her face as she looked around at the Sages of Forest, Fire, and Water. With a burst of warmth, she realized that she was coming to love and respect them immensely, and that they felt the same way about her.

**(1)You know the kind of shiver—the evil convulsive ones. They happen when you least expect them, and they never fail to make you look like a moron.**


	16. 15: No Rest for the Warrior

Linkali barely had time to draw in breath before yet another pair of dark, talon-fingered hands wrapped around her ponytail and jerked her head back roughly. She choked in surprise, struggling against the iron grip that felt strong enough to pull every hair from her scalp at once. She felt the hands shift so that one of them was free; seconds later, cruelly sharp claws raked down her back, slicing through her mantle and shirt, and cutting into her skin. The youth cried out and thrashed in pain, though her movements were checked by the shadowy creatures that held both her arms firmly in their clawed grips. Their scarlet eyed glimmered and flashed with amusement at Lin's torment, and their shrill, sibilant laughter filled the air. One of the two dug its claws in a little deeper, eliciting a sharp scream from the already-battered young woman.

In vain, the Hylian tried again to struggle free from the grasp of the shadowy beasts, each of whom was taller than she and seemed infinitely stronger. Her heart was racing like a chased rabbit, and her breath tore from her chest in ragged gasps. Linkali wrenched her left arm forward, hoping to shake off to clawed shadow that clung to her; all that did was tear its dangerously sharp talons through her flesh, which jerked another pained, windy scream out of her. Lin could feel blood, hot and sticky, seeping wetly into the fabric of her shirt in growing patches on her arms and back. The thought of injury made her anxious, but in the near-darkness of the Shadow Temple's belly, she could not see the wounds for herself. Ignorance made her, in a sense, fearless, and she would continue to fight under circumstances that normally would have caused her to consider fleeing.

Although…even if she _had_ thought to retreat, she wasn't exactly in a position to do so.

As far as Lin could tell, she was surrounded. Two of the creatures flanked her, their claw-like fingers sunk deep into her arms; a third, shrunken smaller than the others, crouched at her feet, its thin arms wrapped around left leg like steel wire. The fourth was behind her, its talons drumming ominously against her aching shoulders. She could see the glowing, ember-like eyes of a fifth, sixth, and seventh waiting at the edge of the small battlefield, apparently waiting their turn to latch on and draw blood. Linkali would have liked to turn her head and see whether or not there were even _more_ behind her, but the creature at her back kept her eyes facing forward.

The Hylian was breathless, cowed by pain and exhaustion, but unwilling to give up the fight just yet. Fiery determination burned spitefully in her belly, and she gritted her teeth in an angry snarl. She lurched forward and yanked her right arm with her, hoping to rip her head free from the shadow behind her and her arm out of the grasp of its captor. The sudden burst of movement seemed to startle the two beasts, for the one behind her threw its arms up in the air and the one at her side actually released its grip on her. Linkali swung a fist at the shadow holding her left arm, and the strike miraculously connected. She staggered forward, hobbling because of the creature clinging to her leg, her beaten body protesting every uneven step she managed to take. The girl turned swiftly, reaching for her sword, and immediately regretted turning her back on the shadows that had been waiting at the edge of the field.

The three of them lunged through the darkness with demonic speed and scrambled for a hold. One raked its claws down Lin's cheek before it managed to snare her shoulder in its grip. Another tackled her from behind and twisted its arms around her middle like lightning, all but squeezing the breath from her. The third took her free hand and dug its talons in deep; the fresh pain drew a windy scream from the Hylian girl. She sucked in her breath painfully, struggling to expand her chest against the vise-like embrace of the shadow around her body. Faintly, she heard Navi fizzing and darting somewhere above her head; she barely had time to think of the fairy before the three shadows whose grasp she had most recently escaped came speeding towards her with unbelievable agility.

One of the three shrank down in size and latched onto her chest with its clawed hands and feet, sinking them in deep and drawing more blood. Linkali screamed an inarticulate protest and lashed her body from side to side in a vain attempt to shake the creature loose. The second flung itself at her other leg with such force that it nearly knocked the girl off her feet; only a sense of dread regarding what might happen should she lose her footing kept Lin fighting to stay vertical. The third wrapped its hands around her arm and pushed the cruel tips of its claws in deep. Again, a cry of pain ripped its way free from the teen's throat, ragged and sharp as the agony it was voicing.

Linkali thrashed stubbornly against her shadowy captors, struggling to shake them free. Was one of these creatures truly the Sage of Shadow? Or were they yet another band of evil spirits that roved the Shadow Temple's dark heart? The wiry imps giggled and hissed in the darkness; as if that had been some strange signal, each of them with a grip on the young woman's body dug in its talons and dragged their tips in slicing lines through her skin. Lin's body exploded with fierce, fiery pain. A shrill, agonized scream burst out of her, though she did not even hear it. For a brief moment, she was totally deaf, unable to hear either the creatures' laughter or her own screeching. Blackness began stealing across the edges of her mind; the pain and strain were nearly too much for her to bear. Linkali shook her head roughly, breathing in jagged, barking gasps that carried traces of a sob to them. She blinked hard until the barely-lit room fell into focus again.

She almost wished it hadn't.

There, surrounding the round, gray surface on which she struggled and fought, were dozens upon dozens of glittering red eyes. They danced in the dark like eager embers, hungry and waiting to flare up and destroy. Linkali gulped. The creatures had been steadily multiplying ever since she had started the fight, but _that_ was just plain ridiculous. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away from the multitude of glowing red eyes. Her whole body began to tremble slightly at the numbers facing her, and the creatures holding her fast began to titter amongst themselves.

"_You fear us,"_ they hissed, and the sound of their voices—so hauntingly similar, but each a unique individual—sent chills down Lin's back. _"We can smell it in your blood and breath. Your heart is screaming in your chest. You fear us."_

Linkali's dark blue eyes snapped open in the darkness. Just as the shadows had said, there was fear in them…but it shared space with dogged bravery and stubborn strength, and pure, furious rage. She scowled. "I fear nothing," she growled breathlessly, trying to disguise a voice tight with pain. She was prepared to deny the accusation to her dying breath, even to herself. "I carry the Triforce of Courage—I have no fear. And even if I did, the last thing I feared would be the Sage of Shadow!"

"_There are no Sages here,"_ the creatures keened in their eerie, windy voices. _"There is only Imparo and her many shadows. But which of us is Imparo and which of us are merely her clones?"_ Linkali held her tongue, her eyes burning hatefully into the massing darkness, where more red embers were starting to twinkle into being. _"What? You do not wish to guess? Imparo is certainly here among us; will you not try and seek her out?"_ The Hylian was silent.

After a few moments, the shadows continued, _"Perhaps we are being unfair. After all, if you guess wrongly, we will consume you, and there is hardly enough flesh on your bones to be shared among us all." _They hissed with laughter. Lin shuddered weakly, turning her face just slightly away from the black masses. When she looked back, the eyes had vanished; the seven original shadows were all that remained, their talons sunk deep into her skin. _"We have evened the odds for you, shivering little child. The shadows now number seven: One on your left hand, one on your left arm, one on your chest, one on your right shoulder, one at your waist, one at your left leg, and one at your right leg. Which among us is the main controller of these shapes? If you can find her, she will treat you to a one-on-one fight, as fair as you like it."_

Linkali was silent still, her heart hammering frantically in her chest. Every time the shadowy beasts spoke, it felt as if she had swallowed a piece of ice; her stomach froze and her whole body felt cold. Every piece of her seemed to throb with relentless agony, needled with sharp pains and cut through with angry slashes. She was close to exhaustion, but she was not about to give in just yet. The Hylian youth's eyes narrowed dangerously. She paused, gauging the strength of each of the beasts' grasp on her. Then, with a wild cry, she thrashed her aching body recklessly and miraculously wrenched her arms free from the claws that held them. Fresh pain ripped through her, but the girl ignored it. Instead, she closed her eyes and spun her hands around each other, grinning with grim satisfaction as she felt a round weight drop into them. The shadows flew towards her, shrilling and hissing their fury…only to bring their leaps up short as Linkali held the lit bomb over her head.

"Now…that's better," the wounded youth whispered, her dark eyes narrowed. "You vicious little—you stay back." Her voice was ragged and raspy from shouting, and her words were almost lost in the fizzing of the fuse. Navi settled down atop her head; Lin's shoulders were too torn up to bear even her tiny weight. The girl reached down the front of her nearly-shredded mantle and pulled out the clay ocarina she wore around her neck. Playing one-handed was somewhat difficult, but she managed to get the notes out the first time. She dropped the instrument with a sigh of relief and felt herself begin to rise off the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut, her whole body trembling with pain.

* * *

"Lin, the bomb! It's still lit!" Navi shrieked fearfully, darting around the weary girl's lowered head in panic. Linkali's eyelids fluttered and her head lifted the barest of inches. The fairy continued screaming in panic. Lin blinked silently at the sizzling fuse, totally uncomprehending for a moment. Then, a chilly jolt speared through her as she realized what her fairy friend was trying to tell her. With a breathless shout, she licked her fingers and put out the fuse with bare seconds to spare before explosion. She stood there, doubled over and panting for breath, while Navi zipped about her head. Her breathless gasping turned into breaking sobs, and Linkali tumbled to her knees; the bomb rolled away across the grass. The Hylian braced herself with one hand on the ground, and began to cry.

Lin was not a girl who cried often. Hanging around Bartal had done it: In their younger days, before Coren had been born, the boy had adopted her as his honorary brother; in Bartal's childish mind, only girls cried, and girls could not be brothers. Every time Lin had tried to burst into tears, Bartal had simply walked away and refused to speak to her until her eyes were dry. Of course, nowadays, her male friend was more accepting of such displays of emotion, but Linkali had effectively been conditioned not to cry unless the situation yanked her control away—such as now, when she had been clawed and assaulted so thoroughly that blackness played at the edges of her mind.

Tears coursed down her cheeks, and the burn of the salt in the scratches on her face added insult to injury. She cried not simply from the pain of the wounds that covered her body, but also from the shame she felt for fleeing a fight and for the sense of failure that weighed down her heart. Helplessly, she pounded a bloody fist against the grass, leaving smears of crimson red against the gentle green. "I can't _do_ it!" she sobbed brokenly.

"Do what? Lin, what _happened_ to you?"

Saria was there, though the youth hadn't heard her approach. She rested a small hand on one of the few piece of the older girl's shoulder that wasn't a shredded mess. Ruto appeared next, placing her gentle hands on Linkali's knees and wiping away some of her tears. Darunia's approach was unmistakable, for the ground shook like thunder when he walked; the big Goron sat down beside Ruto and murmured sympathetically. Each of the Sages was clearly worried, but Lin could not bring herself to tell them how she had come to be in their midst, a sobbing, bleeding wreck.

Navi took command, telling the three concerned Sages the reason that had brought them to the Sacred Realm. Feeling confident, Linkali had set out for the Shadow Temple with the intent of breaking the seal on the Sage of Shadow. The Temple itself—with its false walls and undead enemies—had been challenge enough; the monster that Impa had become was almost unspeakable. The Sage of Shadow was now shadowy creature that could split itself into countless clones of the original in an instant—a ruthless and sadistic nightmare that had nearly torn the poor girl half-huddled on the ground to shreds. By the time Navi was nearly finished her tale, Linkali had all but stopped crying, save for the traces of a shivery sob in her breathing. Her blue eyes were dull and dark, staring blankly at the ground in front of them. "I can't do it," the youth rasped when the fairy had finished speaking. "I can't do it." She shook her head slowly, her expression blank and disbelieving. "Forget it—it's not possible. I failed you, and I failed Zelda, and I failed all of Hyrule."

"Hush," Ruto scolded gently. She tucked one long finger under the young Hylian's chin and lifted Linkali's eyes to her own. "That's no way to talk. The Triforce of Courage wouldn't have chosen you for this task if you weren't able to carry it out."

"It's chosen others before me, and they've all died because they couldn't handle it," Lin told her. "It hasn't been only me and the Hero…who's to say I'm not just another one of the failures?"

"For one thing, those 'others' usually didn't make it much past their eighth birthday," Saria pointed out, leaning around Linkali's side. She offered the girl an encouraging smile, but Lin turned away with a sigh. The Kokiri girl pouted, clearly hurt that her attempts to make the situation better had gone ignored. Darunia reached around behind the young woman's back and gave his fellow Sage a gentle, consolatory pat on the back that sent her tumbling forwards onto her face. Saria pushed herself up off the ground partway. "Anyway, Lin, you're not a failure—don't even think of calling yourself that."

"It sounds as if you were also up against some harsh odds," Darunia commented. "I would not have liked to be in your place at that time." He frowned. "But all of this talk is not doing you any good. I believe there is something else that should take priority."

"You mean the fact that she looks like she decided to go swimming with Gyorg fish?" Ruto asked. Lightly, she stroked a few strands of dull brown hair away from Linkali's face. "Why don't we get you cleaned up, Lin?"

Linkali was silent; she neither agreed nor disagreed with the Zora's suggestion, although the idea of having her wounds treated was appealing in its own right. She kept her eyes low as Ruto laid a gentle hand on her sliced cheek, too ashamed to lift her eyes from the ground. The Water Sage's touch was cool and tender; her hand slightly damp and smooth as glass. It lulled her, calmed her somewhat, and put her even more in mind of her mother's care. Her mother—Lin's heart twisted painfully at the thought of the woman whose face she longed to see. Before her sadness could grow too strong, the girl shoved it aside, focusing instead on Ruto's cool hand on her face and how much of a relief it was. As gentle and silky and light and hot as a sunburn!

The Hylian youth jerked, letting out a breathless yelp as she jerked her face away from the Zora's hand. She touched her cheek in shock, her breath coming in quivering gasps. She blinked at Ruto silently, her dark blue eyes huge and round; they were full of pain, hurt, and a little bit of betrayal. A single sob wrenched its way out of her throat at the sudden pain she'd felt, a sensation made all the worse by the tenderness that had precluded it. The skin beneath Linkali's hand was smooth and whole, unbroken by wound or scar…but it ached horribly. Ruto sighed. "I should have warned you…It's going to hurt a bit," she said softly. "The bigger the injury, the worse that bit at the end will be. Saria is gentler"—at this, the young girl nodded and patted Lin's thigh consolingly—"but she doesn't have the strength to take care of bigger wounds." She held out her web-fingered hands. "Will you let me continue?" she asked gently; the tone of her voice suggested that Linkali did in fact have a choice in the matter. The youth silently nodded.

Ruto scooted around behind her and laid her hands on Lin's back, murmuring darkly when she saw the gashes one of Imparo's clones had left. Lin flinched from the touch at first, but relented a few seconds later. She dug her fingers into the soft ground beneath her, bracing herself for the fiery, searing pain that was sure to follow hot on the tail of the cool, soothing touch she felt now. Her shoulders tensed and her teeth gritted. It was a few moments in coming, but when it hit her, Linkali let out a shuddering gasp that turned into another agonized sob. She broke down a second time, though her tears were short-lived this bout. Ruto, it seemed, had taken the advantage of her distraction and had set her silky-smooth hands on the young woman's shoulders. Lin soon stopped trying to focus on the Sage's healing at work, instead turning her attention to the ground below her.

The grass was green—had it always been that shade? She remembered it being more yellow than it currently was. It had been more like the grass in Kokoria then, a little drier and deader-looking. The thought of her home village built up another block of sadness in the back of her throat, and the young Hylian struggled to swallow it back before it got too big.

She barely noticed when Ruto turned the task of healing over to Saria. Only towards the end of the first, when she felt a tiny pinch, did Linkali look down and see that the Kokiri Sage had one of her gloved hands enfolded in both of her little ones. She looked up at Lin with her large, childish eyes; a glimmer of the wisdom that belonged in the gaze of a Sage was the only true hint that Saria was more than she appeared. She grinned, pointing to the once-torn leather gauntlet that covered Linkali's healed hand. "It takes a little extra effort to 'heal' things other than your skin," she pointed out, "but we figured it's worth it. After all, it'll be one less thing you have to explain to your parents."

At that, Lin looked away brokenheartedly. Saria gulped softly. "Oh…uh, pare_nt_?" she tried again sheepishly, stressing the singular. The Hylian girl shook her head.

"No, parents—plural," she replied. "It's just that…" She trailed off miserably, her voice becoming choked. "I can't do it," she whispered sadly. "I give up…I'm sorry." One hand stole to her belt and undid the cords of the pouch of Medallions. She removed it from her belt and placed it on the ground in front of her, staring blankly at the mark of her failure. Saria gasped. "If I can't get past the Sage of Shadow, what point is there in me even trying? _All_ of the Sages are needed to restore the Master Sword—it isn't like I can unseal all except the one that's too strong for me to subdue." Her eyes were dark with sadness, and even a bit of lonesomeness. She shook her head. "I'm giving up…I can't do this anymore."

"This isn't just about nearly getting yourself killed," Ruto pointed out plainly, crossing her arms over her silver-scaled chest. "Which, might I add, you almost _did_. I'm sure you hear this from anyone who spends more than a few seconds in your company, but what your mouth is saying doesn't always match up with what your eyes say, Lin. And right now, there's more in your eyes than you're telling us. What's _really_ bothering you?"

Darunia gave a disapproving rumble at the Water Sage's bluntness, but Linkali actually managed a single, soft laugh. She looked over at Ruto and smirked slightly. They'd already seen her cry; what were a few more revelations between friends? "I guess…I haven't seen home in a while…longer than I've ever gone before," she explained quietly. "People in Hyrule…really don't leave their villages often. It's too dangerous to travel—the Field is swarming with monsters, and you might run into some of King Ganon's soldiers." The three Sages flinched slightly to hear the evil monster so openly referred to as a king—a title he only held because none would dare challenge him for it. But that was how Lin had been raised: Aloud, it was best to refer to Ganon as a monarch, just in case he had ears nearby. She paused. "I was in the Shadow Temple for more than a week—today is the tenth day in a row I've spent away from Kokoria."

Shaking her head slowly, Lin continued, "Fine—I'll admit to it. I miss a lot of people." Her voice began to tighten as she spoke. As she mentioned them, the faces of those she loved flashed before her eyes, flickering and brief and insubstantial. "I miss my parents—and my sister Tali—and my friend, Bartal—and his little brother, Coren—and Zelda—and…and…Dammit, I even miss my _cat!_"

"You're homesick," Saria noted, smiling with all of the perfect innocence of a young girl. Linkali glanced down at her and nodded grudgingly. She didn't like admitting it, but the Sage of Forest was dead-on. The implications of the statement only sent her spirits plummeting further. What kind of warrior was ever _homesick_? That was something that was expected of a child; a _warrior_—especially a warrior with a spirit like Lin's—should be stronger and better than that. Not only had she failed all of Hyrule, but she had also let down the Hero of whose spirit she shared a piece. (As if he hadn't been disgraced enough…) Darunia, as calm and insightful as always, interrupted before Linkali could go much beyond that.

"It seems to me that you feel like a failure because you are exhausted not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well," he murmured. "You take a lot of strength from your family, and now that you have been distanced from them for this span of time, you have run through your reserves. That is why you feel you cannot carry on; you no longer have the same emotional strength as you once did." He smiled, lightly resting one of his huge, warm hands on the girl's sore back. The sudden revelation washed over Linkali's mind in a soothing tide; she hadn't even thought that all of her hopelessness could be the result of homesickness, and to hear him explaining it seemed to make it gentler and easier to take. "I think you should go home and rest a while, little Brother."

"You've been working too hard," Ruto added before Linkali could say anything. "You know, you don't have a time limit or anything like that. From what I've heard, you've just been going from place to place without even thinking about yourself or taking any time to relax." She shook her head. "That's not good, you know—especially not for someone who's been raised to need contact with the ones they love." She smiled gently; all this talk of seeing her family and friends again was visibly lightening the girl's mood. "You're not a failure, Lin—get that out of your head. Spend some time back in your village and rest up."

"But what about—" Lin reached for the pouch of Medallions, feeling a little more confident about taking it back. She still wasn't sure how she was going to best the creature that had once been Impa, but perhaps Zelda would be able to help her out. The Sheikah had, at one point, been very close to the former Princess of Hyrule; it was possible that the old woman would know something about her nanny that the other Sages did not. As the youth's hand strayed near the bag, Saria darted forward and snatched it up.

"We will hold onto these so that you aren't tempted," she teased. When Linkali opened her mouth to protest, the Kokiri girl sighed. "You're trying to do things too fast. You hardly gave yourself any time to rest in between unsealing the three of us, and it would be very unwise to let you go rushing off again."

"You don't have a time limit," Ruto repeated dryly.

"That's true. After all," Saria said with a gentle smile, "you have an advantage that Link did not. Ganon is already as powerful as he's going to get—no matter how long it takes you to unseal the others and repair the Master Sword, he will not grow any stronger." A glint of ancient wisdom stole into her gaze, a knowing light that should not belong in a child's eyes; Linkali reminded herself again that as playful and impish as she could be sometimes, Saria was just as much a wise and powerful Sage as the others. The Kokiri wiggled the Medallion pouch before tying it onto her own belt. "Have no fear; the remaining Medallions will be safe with us!"

Looking around at the three Sages, the Hylian youth was forced to nod in agreement. She smiled thinly, too tired and sore to really show the depth of her feelings for them. "All right. I'll do it," she said. "I'll see you all again…sometime." Glancing up at Navi, she pulled the ocarina from underneath her mantle and began to play.

* * *

_I am sorry to hear about the difficulties you faced in the Shadow Temple,_ Zelda wrote as Linkali took a sip from the steaming cup of tea in her gauntleted hands. The mute Hylian's eyes were sympathetic, and she smiled gently at the young woman seated across from her.

Dusky light, lavender-colored and thin, shafted in through the big kitchen window, and the small room was comfortably dark. Outside, Kokoria Village was beginning to settle in for the evening; the goats were locked in their pen, and mothers were beginning to call their children in to wash up for supper. Linkali glanced out the window absently, sighing under her breath with contentment at the familiarity of it all. She loved the exploring her quest had allowed her to do, but she was honestly glad to be back in her home village again. A gentle rapping sound drew her attention downwards, where Zelda was tapping her paper with a slender finger.

_What the Sages said is true,_ the old woman had written. _You have been trying to do things a bit too swiftly. I expected you to give yourself at least a few days in between outings._

"I just…I wanted to get it done," Lin replied. "And honestly, it was fun to go around and see all the new places I've seen. It's a shame that no one in Hyrule really goes out to explore it—that they _can't_ these days." _Well, except for that crazed traveler who thinks he can make it back to his homeland—I wonder how he is._

"Once the Master Sword is restored to its full power and Ganon is dealt with, they'll be able to," Navi pointed out. Linkali glanced down at her fairy partner briefly before setting down her empty cup of tea and nodding her head.

"Right," the Hylian youth replied calmly, neither accepting nor denying the responsibility that such a statement implied. She ran her fingertip distractedly over the rim of her teacup, her eyes straying once more to the large window and the village that lay outside it. Her blue eyes grew distant, and a thin smile played around the corners of her mouth. She had snuck past her own home—having felt the need to inform Zelda of her return—and now wondered what her family's response would be to see her again.

_Mom won't know what to do with herself,_ she thought, exhaling softly with the ghost of a fond laugh. _She'll probably try to yell at me for being away for so long, but in the end, she'll be too relieved to see me again to be angry. Dad won't let me out of his sight, and Tali won't be able to keep her arms off of me._ She shook her head wonderingly, and the dull pains of loneliness she had been feeling softened and sweetened. She almost didn't hear Zelda tapping the table again, and jerked her eyes away from the window to focus on the village founder.

_Why don't you go home, Lin?_ Zelda asked through her writing. _Come and see me after a few days—take as long as you like. Perhaps the two of us will be able to come up with a solution to this problem._

Linkali got the feeling that the former Princess already had a solution in mind, but she wasn't about to pry. (Even though she roved bravely in contrast to her fellow Hylians, Lin had been raised not to ask too many questions.) She stood up from the table, and Navi zipped up to hover beside her shoulder. The two Hylian women embraced—Lin grinned as she felt the Triforce of Courage begin to hum vigorously inside of her—and the younger took her leave. As she stepped out the door, she inhaled deeply, and the mingled smells of smoke and goats set her heart at ease.


	17. 16: A Momentary Respite

Inasmuch as anyone in Hyrule was willing to give it, Lin received a Hero's welcome from a rather large percentage of the people in Kokoria Village. They had no idea why she had been away for so many days (and, being Hylians, they were not about to ask), but she was home again, and that was all they really cared about. Many of her fellow Kokorians commented on how nice it was to see her again; those that she and Bartal pulled pranks on seemed almost glad to be fooled, if only because it meant that the village's infamous duo was back in action once more. These were all people who normally would not go out of their way to speak to someone else, and yet they walked up to Linkali when they saw her with Bartal or Talina out on the common to greet her and welcome her home again. The more people approached her, the more Lin began to realize just how much she had missed home—and how much home had missed _her_. Though perhaps none had missed her as much as Tali and Bartal. Linkali was never without the company of either, unless she was with both of them together.

With Bartal, the young woman went on more hillboarding runs than she wanted to count, sometimes going out multiple times a day. Together, they roamed the forest on the outskirts of the village—sometimes with younger siblings in tow, and sometimes just the two of them. They pulled reckless stunts, chased each other around the village shouting threats, and spent long nights stargazing on the roof of Bartal's house. The dynamic duo gleefully reclaimed their status as Kokoria's most-loved nuisances, with barrages of petty mischief and clever practical jokes. Linkali was amazed at how quickly her heart regained its strength; her defeat and retreat from the Shadow Temple seemed to grow farther and farther away each time she heard Bartal's ringing laughter. It was a wonder, a relief, to be so close to her lifelong friend again; the look in the Hylian boy's amber eyes told her that he was just as glad to be beside her.

If she wasn't with Bartal, then Lin was definitely with her younger sister. Talina was thrilled to have her older sibling back home again. The night Linkali had returned to Kokoria Village, Tali had crept into the young woman's room and wiggled under the covers to be all the closer to her sister; they had curled around each other in warmth and happiness, both of their hearts swelling with joy. The younger Hylian trailed after her older sister almost everywhere, following her through chores and leisure, and hanging on her every word. (Though she loved Navi dearly and knew that the feeling was mutual, Linkali had to admit that there was a certain kind of affection that the fairy could not provide, and that was the worshipping love of a little sister.) The sisters were rarely far apart, and were almost never silent. Talina spoke of all the things she was learning from Halvara; Linkali told stories of some of the places she had seen, trying to keep her descriptions as untraceable as possible. Though Tali had sworn herself to secrecy, Lin didn't entirely trust her carefree, talkative sister to keep silent, so she made sure to omit details that would point to specific locations in Hyrule. (After all, no one could know where the young woman _really_ went, just as they could not know what she was _really_ doing.)

Linkali loved being home again, though as time went on, she began to notice certain things that irked her slightly. Going out on her own, she'd grown accustomed to fending off monsters rather than fleeing from them; she'd forgotten how terrified everyone else in Kokoria Village was of meeting them outside the gates. She and Bartal had been forced to cut an evening of hillboarding short because the clouds had massed and the field outside the village was dark enough to make the boy fear for monsters. She had to get used to seeing people walking around with their heads and eyes low, and even endured a few stares because she did not move about in such a shifty manner. It came as a bit of a hurtful revelation when she realized that she was among people who very much feared the Evil King, people who might want to rise against him but who never would, people who were afraid to take action. It sickened her to see even her daredevil friend all but crippled by his fears of encountering a monster on the field after dark.

As the days passed by, Linkali sometimes saw Zelda sitting on her porch, enjoying the warming weather. The old Hylian would smile warmly whenever she saw Lin, though she never made any move to beckon the young woman over to her. She was hanging back, letting the girl lose herself for a time in the happiness and familiarity of her home. Linkali knew that a time would come—likely before the week was out—that she would have to approach Zelda and discuss strategies for subduing Imparo, but for the time being, she let that particular worry slide from her heart. Though it had been less than two weeks' absence, she had missed and been missed. She was home—back in Kokoria once more!

As her heart regained strength, Linkali began to think about her duty to the Sages more often. She knew that she should speak to her fellow Triforce-bearer, but a little bit of uneasiness remained. Never mind the corrupted Sage of Shadow—the Temple in which she resided was a place Lin never wanted to see again, if she could help it. Trapped in a kind of permanent semi-twilight, with walls that echoed with half-audible moans and cries, walls hung with chains and torture devices that glistened with a patina of age-old blood, walls that looked solid that you could walk right through and floors that were just illusions that covered empty holes, walls pitted with hollows that held dully-gleaming skulls. The place was swarming with undead monsters—Stalfos warriors with rattling bones and keen swords, leathery-skinned ReDeads that screamed shrilly and latched onto those their cries had paralyzed…The Shadow Temple was not a place for the faint of heart, but Lin felt as if it had been almost too much even for her, with the Triforce of Courage, to handle. **(1)**

And as if that weren't enough, there was the multiplying monster Imparo waiting at the end of it all. More than once, Linkali woke in the middle of the night with a start, feeling as if the corrupted Sage's claws were wrapped around her throat and digging into her back. She would lie awake after that, shivering and sick at heart, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow as if watching to see which would rise and attack her. (That was how Imparo had started the battle: She'd lurked on the ground in Lin's shadow for ages before leaping up and sinking her claws into the youth's shoulders with a blood-chilling hiss.) Navi would soothe her back to sleep gradually, and the girl would rest, albeit somewhat uneasily, until morning light.

* * *

"I hope you aren't busy today, Aldez," Linkali said softly as the old woman opened her door fully. She figured it was best to use the former monarch's false name until they were safely away from anyone who might overhear. "There's something I need to talk to you about."

Zelda's blue eyes sparked with knowing, and she nodded. She stepped back gracefully and motioned the youth into her home with a simple sweep of her arm. Lin accepted the invitation and started walking down the hall towards the kitchen. As the door closed, Navi bobbed up from her hiding place in the folds of the soft, green mantle around Lin's shoulders and drifted ahead a few feet. The young Hylian sat down at the kitchen table, waiting patiently as Zelda gathered up a few sheets of paper and her quill pen. As soon as the older woman was ready, her young guest spoke again. "There has to be a way for me to take Imparo down for long enough that I can return the Medallion to her," she said. "Twenty Rupees says that I need to incapacitate her momentarily, just like I did Darunia—but I'm still not sure how I'll be able to do that. She moves so quickly that all of my energy is spent tracking her movements and defending from her attacks—not to mention avoiding the copies she makes of herself."

Zelda frowned deeply, nodding. _The task is not an easy one,_ she scratched apologetically. _And I am having just as much difficulty as you are, I fear._

"Imparo challenged you to find the controller of the clones," Navi pointed out. "Remember, Lin? _If you can find her, she will treat you to a one-on-one fight, as fair as you like it._ That's what they told you—I'll bet that's what you need to do to win the day…or at least take a step in that direction."

"That's all well and good," Linkali replied, turning to her friend. "But you forgot the fact that they all look exactly alike." She sighed and rested her forehead in the cupped palm of a hand. "It's an illusion, I'm sure of it—the Sage of Shadow was one of the Sheikah, so she'd be well-versed in deceptive magic. It has to be a matter of figuring out how to see past the smoke and mirrors, but the training for that takes _years_, and probably requires magical aptitude that I just don't have."

At this, Zelda rapped the tabletop to attract her guests' attention. The old woman began writing furiously, the tip of her feather pen snapping softly through the quiet air in the kitchen. She glanced up briefly before turning the paper for them to read. _There is a way to see past illusions—I only mention it now because I wasn't sure whether or not you had already acquired the means to do it. There is, in Hyrule, a mystical artifact known as the Lens of Truth; just as the name suggests, it is a lens that when looked through allows the viewer to see past glamours and illusions._

"What do you mean by that?" Lin asked, tapping the first sentence. "That you weren't sure if I 'had already acquired the means to do it'?" Zelda took the paper back and began to write again.

_I found it difficult to believe that you made it through the entirety of the Shadow Temple without the Lens in your possession,_ she responded. _As I'm sure you discovered, very little in that Temple is as it seems._ She looked up curiously. _How exactly did you manage?_

"Let's just say that it wasn't long before I started tapping my knuckles against every wall I could feasibly reach," Linkali told her grimly, glancing at the back of her hand. Of course, Saria had removed all signs of the scrapes and cuts, but the memory of them still remained. "I also started tossing rocks at any piece of ground I thought was suspect."

Zelda smiled sadly. _I do wish you had told me before you went off to that place,_ she wrote. _I would have asked you then if you had the Lens; perhaps that nightmare could have been avoided._

"Well, that ship's sailed and sunk now," Lin told her nonchalantly. "Sitting around and wishing that the past could have gone differently won't change it." Zelda nodded in agreement, and a brief glimmer of respect and appreciation lit up her old eyes; the girl's words seemed to resonate with her on some deeper level. "The only thing that can be done now is to figure out how to fix whatever we did wrong. I guess what I should be asking is whether or not the Lens of Truth is still obtainable."

_An interesting question, Lin. Indeed, the Hero himself once used the Lens, so it could be counted among his weapons. As I'm sure you now know, all of the weapons he found and used were returned to the people who had once owned them—the Megaton Hammer to the Gorons, the Mirror Shield to the Gerudo, and so on._ Linkali nodded. _Unfortunately, the Lens of Truth does not fit that pattern; one might attribute it to the Sheikah people, but they are no longer around to claim it as their own._

"The Hookshot didn't fit the pattern either," the Hylian youth said, summoning the spring-loaded chain and setting it on the table, "and you had it." She quirked an eyebrow at the former Princess of Hyrule, who returned her gaze coolly and calmly; she didn't confirm the subtle accusation that _she_ was the keeper of the Lens, but she did not deny it either. Lin clasped her hands prayerfully in front of herself, squeezing her eyes shut. "In the cellar, in the cellar, in the cellar, in the cellar, in the cellar," she chanted fervently, allowing one eye to open a crack, "in the cellar, in the cellar, in the cellar, in…the…ce…" Her voice trailed off miserably as she realized that Zelda was shaking her head. "Sssstellar," she hissed, dropping her hands into her lap with a defeated _thwump_.

"Not even a hint of where it might be?" Navi asked hopefully. Again, Zelda shook her head. Linkali paused, eyeing her fairy partner with a calculating gleam in her dark eyes. Navi turned to acknowledge the stare, tilting her head curiously to the side.

"You were with the Hero when he found the Lens in the first place," the Hylian began. "Is there any chance that you remember _where_ it was? I mean—the Hookshot was with Dampé, which is where he found it originally. There's always the possibility that the Lens of Truth somehow made its way back to wherever it had been before the Hero found it."

The blue fairy looked extremely uncomfortable at this; she shifted restlessly on her overturned-teacup chair and clasped her hands in her lap. Her glow dimmed slightly. "One hundred and fifty years is a long time to remember something," she murmured.

"_She_ seems to have managed just fine," Lin retorted dryly, glancing sidelong at Zelda. Navi sighed deeply, and the girl tapped her lightly on the upper arm with the tip of a finger in a consolatory gesture. "Don't worry too much about it, Navi. I'm sure we'll figure it out some way. And if not…well, according to Saria, I've got plenty of time to complete this whole quest. Maybe I'll be able to undertake those years of studying to be able to see through illusions with my own power." It was meant as a joke, but the implications resonated deeply with all three women seated at the table.

If the Lens of Truth could not be found, then it was quite possible that the Evil King's reign would continue unchecked for many years to come.

* * *

She strove to hide it from Navi, but Linkali knew that the fairy would doubtlessly see the unease that lay in her dark blue eyes. The idea that she may not be able to subdue the corrupted Sage of Shadow without years of training was troubling; Lin didn't want to be the reason why Hyrule would have to suffer under the Evil King's rule for longer than it had to. Even though no one actually knew what she was doing (and as such, no one would blame her), _she_ would know, and the guilt would surely kill her.

The young woman sighed as she climbed into bed for the night. Zelda didn't know where the Lens of Truth was, and Navi couldn't remember where she and the Hero had originally found it. The crucial artifact may well have been lost to the ages.

As she was closing her eyes to sleep, Linkali felt a coldness begin to steal steadily over her hand. She got the strange sensation that a hand made of cold mist were resting overtop her own, twining its chilly fingers with hers. Her eyes begin drooping shut, but not before a phantom glint of pale golden light demanded her attention. _I've felt this before,_ she thought, her mind swiftly growing fuzzy as an unusual tiredness descended over her. _In the…Rogons' Cavern. It was right…before I…dreamed with the…Warrior's Spirit._ She would have pursued that train of thought, but she found that her mind was quickly darkening. The sleepiness that filled her felt forced, unnatural—but before she could bring herself to be worried about it, Linkali was already deeply asleep.

When she next opened her eyes, the Hylian youth was standing in a field of tall grass beneath an empty, blue sky. The sun overhead blazed wildly with relentless heat, and it bleached the sky around it a pale white-blue. She recognized the field instantly; it was one of the places in which the Warrior's Spirit had appeared to her—in fact, the _first_ place he had ever appeared to her. Linkali reached out and gripped one of the grass stems between her thumb and forefinger. The color-streaked stalk felt just as firm and cool beneath her fingers as she imagined one would in the waking world. _What kind of place is that, that it feels so real?_ she wondered as she pushed her way through the tall grass, listening to the seedheads rasp together softly behind her. The sun above her was sending down rays of unbearable heat; it was almost too hot to breathe. _And that hand I felt before I fell asleep—what was that? Is the Warrior's Spirit somehow taking me to these places?_

A warm, dry wind breezed over the field, swaying the high grass and making the dried seeds whisper against each other. Linkali turned her face into it, her ears stiffening slightly as she caught the reedy cry of a far-off hawk sounding distantly above the rasping of the grass. She shivered slightly. Though she'd visited this place many times in her dreams, it never failed to strike her as eerie. Lin started walking through the tall stems of grass, shifting them aside gently with the backs of her hands as she stepped between them.

By the time she found the Warrior's Spirit, the girl was already starting to sweat in the heat of the sun. The armored warrior raised an arm in greeting when Linkali stepped out through the thick, green and yellow grass and into the clearing where he stood. Darts of bright sunlight flashed off of his gleaming, golden gauntlets with the motion. Lin stepped over until she was standing beside him. The man laid a hand on her far shoulder, and his arm curled ever so lightly around behind her; the embrace was gentle, and she could easily have broken free from it, but she chose not to. Though she still harbored some suspicions about his identity, she had developed a great amount of respect and liking for the Spirit.

"You brought me here tonight…didn't you?" she asked, when the Warrior's Spirit did not speak. The man nodded; he turned his head just slightly, and Linkali saw the smooth, strong line of his jaw beneath his visor, and the edge of a smile on his face. "I felt something just before I fell asleep—it was you."

"Yes," the Spirit replied. "I needed to speak with you, and show you something important—something that you must know if you are to continue in your quest to unseal the Sages."

"The Lens of Truth," Lin whispered, and saw the man's smile grow. "You know where it is, Spirit?"

The armored spirit nodded. He took his hand from her shoulder and stepped around so that he faced her, moving so calmly that the plates of his few pieces of armor slid over each other with barely a sound. He stood in front of the Hylian youth and rested one of his hands on her shoulder. Without speaking, the Warrior's Spirit extended the first two fingers of his other hand, and gently pressed their tips to the center of Linkali's forehead. He lowered his head just slightly so that the gaze behind his visor snapped onto hers; Lin saw a fractured reflection of her face on the green and gold plate that covered his face. Nothing happened; then, in a span of time so short that it could barely be called an instant, everything changed.

Linkali felt her body lock up, her muscles freezing stiffly into place as if she were suddenly made of ice. She caught her breath in a startled gasp and her eyes flashed open wide with shock. The world around her went black; her vision completely cut off, and all sound dropped off into silence. The young woman tried to call out to the Spirit, but found that she could not move her mouth or any other part of her body. Only her heart, which thundered in her chest and leapt against her sternum, stayed moving. She was frozen, trapped, mute.

Then, softly at first but growing steadily in volume, Lin heard a song begin to play. It was light and happy, and bounced with a melody the likes of which she'd never heard before. For a few minutes, the song was her world; the sound of it was all she knew. Its lively notes filled her ears and painted the image of a gentle rainstorm. The black surrounding her vanished, and was replaced by a series of jerky images and bits of fuzzy, distant sound. The strange song continued to play through it all, filling her head with its bright tune.

A stone windmill—she was inside of it. The central column of the mill was rotating steadily, groaning softly in harmony with the merry song. She was small, young; the man playing the instrument off to the side was taller than she was. His grin seemed ready to split his face in two. "Go around!" he told her; his voice sounded strangely muffled and distant, even though he was barely a foot away from her. "Go around and around and around! What fun! I'm so happy!" Linkali felt herself pull out an instrument, play the same song that echoed through her ears. Nothing, then a crash of thunder, and rain began to pour down from on high. The song kept ringing around her, though it grew warped and strange. The groaning of the pillar grew louder, and the floor began to shake.

Outside. Her vision changed suddenly so that she was standing outside the stone column, leaning against the fence outside it. A well was on the ground below, and as she watched, the water inside began spiraling down into darkness. The windmill behind her was creaking and groaning with the strain. The well was almost empty. Linkali vaulted over the fence, landing light as a cat on the grass below, and made her way over to the hole in the ground.

The vision changed, and the music she'd heard faded into silence. She was running through the damp and dark belly of the well itself, dodging chuckling, floating skulls cloaked in green fire. The slimy stone walls echoed with a throbbing, moaning hum, and stagnant water plinked and dripped unseen. All of it so forbidding, and yet she was there anyway. Another flash, and she was standing in front of an inlaid, gold Triforce on the floor; water, strangely clear for something that had flowed in such a dark place, poured out from a carved monster's mouth. She played a song, the song Zelda had taught her. The water stopped, drained, left the ground dry.

Linkali ran on, dropping down into the hole the water had left behind and crawling through a narrow tunnel in the stone. The floor beneath her hands and knees was wet, scattered with the skeletons of drowned rats. She came to the end, stood up, dusted herself off, started for the door that awaited her at the end.

A battle—one had gone on. Lin didn't know what enemy she faced, only that its cold fingers gripped her tightly and pumped her full of fear. The images were brief, fleeting; Linkali saw the chest awaiting her at the end of the fight. She walked over to it, opened it up, and pulled out the treasure that hid within. Amethyst purple frame, spiked with ruby red decorations, and glassed with pale crimson. She had it; it was hers. She gripped the handle of it and held the item in front of her eyes. A haze of magic surrounded her peripheral vision, while that which lay in front of her eyes was crystal clear—clearer than her normal sight. Then, as if that were the signal, blackness surrounded her once more.

Linkali's body gave a convulsive twitch, and her eyes jolted open. Her heart was thudding against her ribs, and her entire body was shaking slightly. The young woman sat up slowly with the soft whisper of skin on cotton, her eyes wide in the low light. Her room and everything in it was painted in the muted shades of blue-gray dawnlight; the sun had not yet poked its head over the edge of the land. A dream—it had only been a dream, and yet Lin swore she could still feel the cool weight of the lens in her hand. **(2)**

_The Lens!_ she thought, drawing in breath in a quiet gasp. _That was the Lens of Truth I found! It was in a well—an old well!_ She looked at the table beside her bed, where Navi had been sleeping. The fairy awoke when Lin did, and stared mildly at the girl in silence; Linkali returned to her thoughts, frowning lightly in concentration. _A well, a windmill…I remember that from the Hero's Story. It's in Kakariko! The Lens of Truth is in Kakariko Village!_

"Lin?" Navi whispered, breaking the silence and interrupting the young Hylian's train of thought. Linkali looked down at her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing—in fact, something may actually be _right_," Lin replied, her voice a mystified murmur. "Navi, I think I know where the Lens of Truth is: the Well in Kakariko."

"How do you know that?" the fairy asked. As she became more fully alert, her dim glow brightened until her body was hidden in an orb of light. Linkali shook her head.

"I'm…not sure how to explain it," she said quietly at length, remembering the strange, jerky, jumbled barrage of images and sounds that had flooded her mind while she'd slept. It hadn't been a proper rest, though, for she was still tired; like any dream in which she met the Warrior's Spirit, she sensed that she had not truly been asleep, even though her eyes had been closed and her mind far from her body. "But, I know it _has_ to be there. As much as I'd rather avoid that place…"

"What do you mean?" Navi queried. She smothered a yawn.

Lin paused. "Well…Kakariko Village is a ghost town. Literally," she answered. "Last I heard, the only things living in that place were the Poes. And one could argue that, being ghosts, they don't actually live there."

"Is that why we took that side path up to Death Mountain and to the Temple, instead of going through Kakariko?"

"Yes. No one's been to that village in ages." Vaguely, Linkali remembered something that Zelda had told her when she'd revealed that 'Aldez' was only an identity she had assumed: that the old woman had known that Kakariko Village would not survive long without the Hero around; it stood between the Shadow Temple and Death Mountain. Lin wondered just how long it _had_ lasted. She shrugged the thought away. "But I'm certain we'll find the Lens in that well!"

"Then that will be the first place we look," the fairy told her. "But Lin…The sun hasn't even risen, and we're not prepared yet."

"I didn't say we were going right this second." Linkali lay back down with a soft laugh. "Din's fires, Navi, I'm not _that_ eager to leave." She sighed softly and stared up at the ceiling, which was painted dark gray-blue by the frail morning light. The Sages had been right: She _had_ needed to spend time with the ones she loved. It felt simply wonderful to be home again, and that almost made her reluctant to leave it again. There was something in her heart that urged her towards the village gates, though it was nothing she would admit openly to Navi; it was, after all, a bit of a change of heart.

Linkali shook her head, light brown hair whispering against her pillow. These things would happen however they did, and the girl would let them come to pass with typical Hylian acceptance. She closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

* * *

Later that morning, Lin met with Zelda to tell the old woman where she planned to go next. The former Princess agreed that the Well was a good place to start their search; after all, the Hookshot had originally been the gravekeeper's, and after Link's death it had turned up in his possession once more. It seemed reasonable to assume that the artifact would have somehow been returned to the Well where it had once resided.

The next morning, after spending the rest of the previous day with her sister, Linkali gathered her supplies and was heading for the village gates at dawn. Though her family knew where she was going, the youth had taken great pains to make sure the rest of the village was unaware. Despite her best efforts, though, as she walked through the dewy grass, she spotted Bartal leaning against the gates; the boy had a pack on his back and a smirk on his face. Lin couldn't fully suppress a grin of her own as she neared. "I guess the first intelligent question I can ask is this: How did you find out?"

"Your little sister has the _biggest_ mouth in Hyrule," Bartal replied softly with great amusement. His teeth glinted in the gray dawn light. "I'm coming with you this time, Lin—I'm tired of you heading off on your own and leaving me to wallow in boredom and self-pity."

Before Linkali could open her mouth to say anything, Navi darted out from the hood of her mantle and zipped between the two young Hylians. Bartal's eyes jolted open wide, and he pointed to the unfamiliar, glowing creature wordlessly. "You'll have to stay behind," the fairy told him. "You'd only slow us down. I'm sorry to be so brisk, but this is an important task we are about to undertake, and we can't have you—"

"What the _hell_ are you?" the young man burst out, his voice a strained whisper in the cool morning air. Linkali snickered quietly and held out her hand.

"Bartal, this is Navi," she said, gesturing between them to introduce them to one another. "Navi, Bartal." She spoke to her old friend, "Navi has been helping me out whenever I leave the village. She knows a lot about the places I've visited and the monsters that inhabit them." She paused. "And…to answer your question, she's a fairy from the Kirikiri Forest."

"I thought fairies were beautiful, slender women," Bartal joked.

"Forgive me for not fulfilling your fantasies" Navi snapped, somewhat sharply. (Apparently, her stocky frame was connected to a rather touchy nerve.) Bartal, confused and defensive after a reaction he did not expect, returned with something just as biting, and before long the two of them were snapping at each other in the still village. For a moment, Linkali wondered if she was going to spend the rest of the next few days mediating between the two of them—which was perhaps the absolute _last_ thing she wanted to do. She waved a hand between the softly bickering twosome to break off their argument.

"I'm not going to waste my time keeping you two from leaping at each other's throats," she told them in a low voice, pointing an index finger sternly at each of them. "Either you learn to get along and play nice, or I head off to Kakariko alone and leave you to sort yourselves out here."

"Kakariko?" Bartal gulped softly. Navi turned to him.

"Yes, _Kakariko_," she confirmed. "From what I hear, it's not the place for a coward to tread."

The anxiety flickering in Bartal's light brown eyes sputtered out at the accusation. The Hylian boy drew himself up sharply, and his hands clenched around the straps of his backpack. "I know," he muttered. "But I'm still going with you two. I'm tired of being a coward; maybe Lin can show me how to be different."

Linkali drew in her breath softly at those words. She rested a hand firmly on her friend's shoulders. "Navi, he's coming with us," she declared quietly. "I don't think I'm ready to truly leave Kokoria behind just yet; I _want_ him to come."

The fairy was silent, clearly disapproving, but she was not about to go against words spoken with such a sense of finality. After a tense moment, she dipped her body in a nod of terse agreement, and Linkali flashed a grateful smile. She was just about to suggest that the three of them get moving before some of the village's earlier risers looked out their windows and saw them, when she spotted a figure coming towards them. She smothered a sigh, only to realize that the man approaching the village gates was none other than the infamous traveler himself.

He looked between the three of them equally, his face showing nothing but polite confusion. (Lin wondered if there were fairies where he came from; Nayru knew, any Hylian who saw Navi would have a difficult time holding back their questions.) A smile worked its way steadily across his face. Linkali waved a hand in greeting. "Are you also leaving today?" she asked.

"Yes," he responded, bobbing his head in a nod.

"This is going to be the…_How_ many times have you tried?" The man blinked mildly at her, clearly unfazed by the somewhat-derisive disbelief in her voice and eyes. "One would think you would accept the fact that you're essentially trapped here. Yes, some have managed to make it out of Hyrule in the past century and a half, but you could probably count them on your hands."

The traveler's emerald-green eyes were icily calm, and his face was impassive. "Though I have met with many blocks and hardships along the way, it doesn't deter me," he replied; Lin noticed that his spoken Hylian sounded much less awkward since she'd last heard him. "I _will_ make it back to my homeland." He gave a roguish, determined grin. "I will never give up, no matter what dangers and setbacks I may face."

Linkali was silent after that, her mouth dropping open the barest of inches with pleasant amazement. His words clicked inside her heart: _I will never give up, no matter what dangers and setbacks I may face._ Suddenly, she found herself developing a new degree of respect and admiration for the young man, for she saw his own determination in herself. She realized that she had a lot more in common with the traveler than she did in virtually anyone else in Hyrule; both of them were courageous and unafraid of adversity—in fact, one might even think they _enjoyed_ the challenges it laid before them. Was Linkali herself not about to brave an unknown, underground dungeon in the hopes of obtaining an artifact that would give her an edge against a monster who had nearly torn her apart? She closed her mouth gently, and a smile began to tug at the corner of her lips.

Turning to Bartal, the young Hylian almost expected to see a look of similar approval on his face. Instead, she was a little startled to see his naked scorn for the bold man. Then she remembered with a sickening flush: Courage and boldness were not exactly praised by Ganon's subjects, and were instead viewed as idiocy and vices that would only get you killed faster. It hurt her to see such dislike, especially after identifying so closely with the traveler—it almost felt as if Bartal were giving _her_ that skeptic look. Linkali did not blame her people for their attitude, though; blame, in her mind, resided with the so-called King who had conditioned them to feel that way over the years. (And perhaps, a bit with the Hero of Time, since his courage had been useless, and his bravery had been his undoing.)

"Good luck to you, sir," Linkali told the man, breaking her eyes away from Bartal's face. "Perhaps this time you'll have success."

"It's good to know that at least someone in this place believes in me," the traveler murmured gratefully. A gleam in his eyes said he hadn't missed the respect in Lin's gaze when she'd looked at him moments earlier. "Where are you headed? Perhaps we can travel together for a time."

"Kakariko Village," Linkali told him. The young man nodded.

"That is near the river, is it not?" The two Hylians nodded together. "Then that is where I will break off from your group. I follow the river past its source, and journey through the mountains behind. My homeland lies beyond the range."

"We'll be glad to have you with us for as long as you are," Lin said, starting towards the gates. She opened them, then looked back over her shoulder briefly. "By the way, I don't believe I ever learned your name."

"Calla," the traveler replied, walking up behind Bartal. "I know that you are Lin, and he is Bartal—and I overheard you saying that the blue sprite's name is Navi."

"Calla," Linkali repeated, nodding to herself. Though she hated herself a little for it, secretly, she hoped that Calla would _not_ succeed in this most recent attempt to return to his homeland. It was refreshing to know that outside of Navi and Zelda, there was someone else in Hyrule who still believed in the power of dogged determination.

**(1) Seriously, the Shadow Temple will give you nightmares. It's one of the more linear Temples in the game, but it's freaky as hell. The music alone gives me the heebie-jeebies. **

**(2) This sentence kind of came out of nowhere, and it almost tempted me to have Lin wake up with the Lens of Truth in hand. But then I realized that doing that would knock out a few important chapters, as well as a pivotal plot point.**

**In other news, the traveler finally has a name!  
**


	18. 17: Into the Well

"I'll go down first," Linkali said quietly, glancing up from the black heart of the Well at the young man standing beside her. Bartal, who had been scanning their surroundings nervously and keeping tabs on all the faint Poe-lanterns, turned back to her and nodded. Lin patted him on the shoulder gently. "Don't be afraid—I won't let anything happen to you, I swear it."

"I know." There was certainty in his voice when he spoke those words, and the girl was caught a little off-guard. Bartal returned his attention to the Poes that drifted around the abandoned village, a crooked grin twisting up the side of his mouth like a strand of ivy. "I—I think I'll be okay." He paused, looking briefly at Linkali as the Hylian youth began working her way down the iron rungs of the ladder that led into the Well. "H-hey, Lin..."

"Yes?" She hesitated for a few moments longer, turning her gaze to her friend.

"If something happens, and I don't make it out of this...take care of Coren for me, okay?"

"All right." Linkali paused. "And Bartal? If something happens to _me_ and_ I_ don't make it out alive..."

"Yeah?"

"Stay the hell away from Tali." **(1)**

As her friend chuckled nervously, Lin hesitated for a moment longer, scanning the world above the stone rim of the well. Kakariko Village was, as she had told Navi, utterly abandoned. Most of the buildings were in states of extreme disrepair, with their brick walls crumbling in and their shingled roofs all but gone; smoke and some unknown residue stained the broken structures in gunky, grungy smears. The grass that covered the ground in coarse, yellow patches was scrubby at best. A dead tree, stripped of most of its branches by time, stood at the center of what had once been the village common; it cast a rather skeletal, ominous shadow against the cloudy, dark sky. The village was dark, for the sun had not yet risen high enough to burn away the morning clouds, though Kakariko was tinged with a dull crimson light from the cloud that ringed Death Mountain's fiery peak. (The intrepid trio had camped outside the village after journeying across the Field, and had woken early that morning to begin their excursion into the Well.)

Poe lanterns bobbed behind the rubble and half-collapsed walls, their bearers occasionally drifting closer to the two Hylians to investigate the young intruders. Their haunting, distant cackles swirled through the still, cool air; from time to time, they would give out a piercing shriek, as if to further intimidate Linkali and Bartal. Lin was not afraid of them, and she noticed that whenever he looked her way, Bartal wasn't either. "Give me a few seconds' lead on you," she told him, keeping her voice low to avoid attracting the wandering ghosts' attention. "That way, if there's anything waiting for us at the bottom, it won't take both of us by surprise."

"You got it," Bartal replied. He let out a shaky breath as his friend descended further down the ladder and was swallowed up by the darkness. For a moment, she was lost; then, Navi spiraled down ahead of her, barely casting any light into the impenetrable blackness.

"I don't sense anything terribly near," the fairy whispered when she zipped back up to her shoulder. "Looks like we don't have to worry about an ambush at the bottom."

"Good," Linkali murmured. Then, raising her voice just barely, she called above, "Bartal—you can start coming down now." She paused as she awaited a response from the boy, wrapping her fingers around the rusted iron pipes that served as ladder rungs. When she pulled one hand away to rub at the base of her nose, she caught the strong scent of oxidized metal—sharp and bitter. A moment later, she heard the soft _thud-clang_ of Bartal's boots as the Hylian boy began his descent. Satisfied that her friend was on his way, she continued her own climb down.

The Well was deep, and it took quite some time before Linkali could see the stones of the floor, brought into view by Navi's pale blue light. She looked up and saw a circle of red-gray sky, with Bartal's shadow thrown against it. Privately, she sent a small prayer to the Three, asking them to let her see that sky again—and to let her male friend see it, too. It would be one thing for her to die down there; Lin wasn't sure she'd be able to carry on living if she had to bring back news of the mischievous boy's death. She forced these somber thoughts away and took a deep breath. No. She would be _fine_. Bartal would be _fine_. This wasn't the Shadow Temple; this was a creepy old Well that may or may not have a priceless magical item hidden in its belly.

When Bartal stepped off the ladder and dusted his gloves off on his tunic, he looked around the darkened shaft warily. His eyes met Linkali's and most if not all of the tension evaporated from his face. There was a glow of trust in his amber gaze, gentle in the darkness; he smiled tentatively at her. "Gods, this place is welcoming, isn't it?" he asked sarcastically, striking his hands on his hips. Lin had to chuckle at that, and she motioned for him to follow after her. Navi bobbed in front, her blue light casting a thin glow on the slime-slick walls of the old well.

The first passage dead-ended at a blank brick wall. **(2)** A flickering torch—Nayru only knew _how_ it was burning—cast a guttering, golden light over the small space. A few rotted bones were all that remained to be seen of what Linkali was sure had once been a full skeleton; perhaps it was that of someone who had once fallen into the well and drowned. The sight of it made her uncomfortable, for though she had seen her fair share of old skeletons in her travels, none of them had ever been…one of her kind. She turned over her shoulder to see Bartal staring in abject horror at the old bones, his lips pulled back in a grin of pure terror. She laid a hand on his upper arm, and the touch startled him enough that he jerked his attention away from the moldering skeleton. He only had to look into her eyes to see the calm steadiness that filled her, despite the fact that she didn't like this place any more than he did. He took a deep breath and nodded.

"I remember this wall being false," Navi said, breaking the silence that had fallen between the two youth. The fairy bobbed ahead, sweeping through the wall that blocked their path and back out again.

"I was just thinking the same," Lin murmured thoughtfully. Bartal quirked a brow.

"Why would you think that?" he asked, clearly confused. "I mean, it looks just like an ordinary wall. There's nothing I can see that suggests it's made of anything but solid bricks." He looked at the other two walls, as if seeking to compare them to the one ahead.

Linkali hesitated, cursing her loose tongue. How could she possibly explain it to him, without giving away too much information? Stumbling around the Shadow Temple, she had started to gain an idea of how to see if a wall _might_ be fake. They didn't reflect light the right way—well, _some_ of them didn't. If you clapped your hands in front of them, you might hear the echo coming from behind the wall, or rather from the room behind the wall. Sometimes, you just got this…feeling. Of course, she couldn't tell him any of this; such things were not common knowledge, even among those who traveled as much as Lin apparently did. You only encountered illusory walls if you were poking around in the belly of a forbidden Temple. Instead, she let the question drop. (Though Bartal did not press her further, somehow she got the feeling that he was starting to be somewhat suspicious of her.) The two Hylians stepped through the wall together, their footfalls echoing hollowly through the dank air.

The belly of the Well was dimly lit, with heavy shadows massed in the corners and stretched up against the uneven walls. Water dribbled down the slimy stones and collected in puddles on the floor, plinking and dripping lonesomely from time to time. The air was strangely warm and humid, thick with the rich smells of decomposition and molding; it throbbed with a low moaning, murmuring sound that sent chills down the brave youths' spines. For a few moments, neither of them moved. Then, the young woman of the pair laid a hand on the sword sheathed at her hip and took a few wary steps across the gray, stone-tiled floor. Her dark blue eyes were keen in the low light, darting from side to side in search of anything that might lunge to attack. Her whole body was tense, alert, ready to leap into action at a second's notice.

Nothing. Only the eerie humming and moaning of the Well.

Linkali turned back to her friend. Bartal stood up a little straighter, and hurried to her side when she flicked her hand to beckon him. "Walk in the lower part of the hall," Navi advised them, hovering down to show the groove in the floor. "Water used to flow here. The higher part of the floor has a couple of holes that are covered by illusions; it's safe to walk here, though."

"You've been to this place before?" Bartal sounded a little awed, as if he admired the fairy's courage. Navi straightened up a bit with pride.

"Once, when I was still with Link," she replied. The boy looked ready to ask more—perhaps to ask Navi if she realized how similar the name she had said was to the name of the girl standing nearby, and to ask who he had been—but Linkali held up her hand for silence. She did so partially because she wasn't totally sure she wanted to explain to Bartal _why_ she was spending time with the companion of Hyrule's greatest failure, and partially because a rather strange sound had reached her ears. She stiffened them warily, like a cat that thinks it's heard the snuffle of an approaching dog, and slowly unsheathed her sword.

The dry chuckling sound persisted, growing louder with each passing second. Linkali tightened her swordgrip and held fast, straining her eyes to see the growing green glow at the end of the passageway. Moments later, a skull appeared, shrouded in green flames. Lin heard Bartal give a quiet yelp of fear at the sight of the monster, listened to him fall backwards and land harshly on the cold floor; when she turned to look at him, though, he pushed himself back onto his feet and flashed her a daredevil grin. These sudden shifts in attitude were starting to make her curious, but the Hylian had something else to occupy her mind with at that moment. The fire-cloaked skull bobbing down the hall towards her commanded her attention. She positioned herself protectively in front of Bartal, eyes fixed on the Green Bubble as it steadily drew nearer…

…and bypassed them completely.

Well, truthfully, the chuckling skull _did_ pause for a moment or two in front of the Hylian youths; if Linkali didn't know any better, she would have said there was a glow of curiosity in its flaming green eyes. Without making any sort of move to attack, it merely turned away and bobbed back down the hall again. Lin glanced over her shoulder at her friend, and saw that he was smirking slightly.

"Like a mother bear," he snickered softly. Linkali raised an eyebrow as she stepped away from him.

"What?" she asked, spreading her hands, palms-up, in front.

"You!" Bartal practically giggled, giddy with relief now that the threat of monster attack had gone. "Standing in front of me like you were ready to give your life in exchange for mine. Not that I'm ungrateful—though it was pretty funny that it didn't even bother trying to attack us." He shook his head, and some of the amusement faded from his expression. "You know, Lin…I feel safe with you around. Like, if I were here alone, I'd probably be cowering in a corner and crying, or something equally embarrassing. But being with you makes me feel…secure, I guess. Like nothing bad could happen to me."

The sudden statement startled Lin somewhat, though she managed to contain and control her feelings just in time for his next words; if she hadn't gotten such a good grip on herself, what Bartal said next might well have thrown her out an emotional window:

"You've done a lot of growing up recently—I can tell—but you're still the same Lin I've been friends with my whole life."

Linkali was confused by this, but she resolved not to let it affect her just yet. Even though she somewhat wanted to sit down and puzzle it out, she had to remind herself that they were in the darkest heart of an old Well, and that monsters could be anywhere. She grinned and nodded, and motioned for her two companions to follow after her.

In silence, the three of them followed the path that the Bubble had taken; Navi had pointed out that the green-flamed skulls traveled the same paths over and over again, and if they went around the other way, they would only run into it again. Linkali could help feeling a strange sense of nostalgia washing over her as she walked across the channel that had once held water. The Warrior's Spirit had shown her this Well, and her dream had taken her down this same path—but she couldn't help feeling that the sense of familiarity went deeper than mere memories of a dream. She frowned thoughtfully.

_It seems strange that the Spirit would be able to show me things only the Hero would have seen,_ she mused. _First the Ice Cavern, and now the Well. You'd almost think he was...—but he _can't_ be. The Hero was mute; the Warrior's Spirit can speak just as freely and eloquently as anyone I've ever met._ She sighed quietly. _Mute or not, though, that man is showing me things that no one but the Hero would be able to show me. So does that mean…?_

Her thoughts trailed off there as she recognized the rectangular hole from her dream. The water that had filled it had long since dried up and drained away; only the faint line of debris remained to mark the line where the water had once been. Navi swooped and bobbed over the empty pool, her blue light reflecting wetly off of the slime-furred walls. "Down here was the path that led to the Lens in the first place!" the fairy informed her Hylian companions.

"What Lens?" Bartal asked. Linkali chose to ignore that question, and vaulted into the waist-deep hole neatly. She turned in the direction she knew the passageway would lie…and balked with a groan. The narrow tunnel was still there, just as she'd seen it in her dream—but the entrance to it barely came up to her knee. In passing, Lin noticed that the tile directly in front of the gap had an unusual design carved into it.

_I was smaller in that dream,_ she told herself. _Because the man in the windmill hadn't seemed that tall, and yet he looked down when he turned his eyes to me. I was smaller then; if I were still that small, I would be able to fit through this tunnel and get the Lens of Truth._

Anger and resentment burned darkly in her belly as the Hylian girl stood in the pit. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and her breath escaped in a restrained hiss through her front teeth. She lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She felt Bartal's hand on her shoulder; she did not look up at him, for fear that he might think the fury in her eyes was directed at him.

"Looks like we should've brought Tali with us," the boy commented dryly. He knelt down in front of the hole. "Actually—hell—I doubt even the beekeeper's kid would be able to wiggle through that." He paused, looking up at his friend. "And the look on your face tells me that whatever you came here to get is at the end of that tunnel." He stepped back and wrapped an arm around her shoulders consolingly. "Sorry we came all this way for nothing."

_No, I'm the one who should be sorry,_ Linkali thought. _Dragging you into danger when _I'm_ the only one who needs to put their life on the line for this mission. I should be sorry that I didn't realize sooner that I'd been smaller in the dream than I am in real life. _She tried to shake the anger away. "I don't suppose there's any chance…" she began, only to cut herself off. She'd wanted to ask if Navi could go through the tunnel and find the Lens, but had quickly realized that the small fairy probably wouldn't be able to carry it. "No, never mind."

A new idea occurred to her. Waving Bartal back, she summoned the Megaton Hammer—whose heavy blow she had used to vent her frustrations many times in the Shadow Temple—and, giving a wild cry, dealt a resonating strike the decorated tile in front of the tunnel. _Thomm!_ The iron head of the hefty hammer thundered down on the carved stone, sending shock waves reverberating through the floor and raising a small, ring-like cloud of dust around the site of impact. The force of the blow sent a harsh wave of power jolting through the girl's toned arms; she hoisted the Hammer up again and braced against the top of her thigh.

The Well seemed to echo with the shock of the Megaton Hammer's fearsome might. Bartal gaped in awe at the heavy weapon; whether he was stunned by its strength or by the fact that his lean, female friend could wield it, Linkali wasn't sure. She panted with exertion, eyes burning into the now-cracked face carved into the shattered floor tile.

There was a silence; then the rumbling around the three travelers grew louder, more forceful, and more concentrated. The ground in front of the small passage was shaking fiercely, grumbling and shuddering. Linkali nearly dropped the hammer on her foot as she saw the floor in front of her suddenly drop down about a foot. Further ahead, she saw the shadow of another piece of the floor drop down, and another, and another…The tunnel was still narrower than her shoulders' width, but it was quickly becoming deep enough to successfully traverse! The low _boom_ of the floor lowering continued for a few moments, then cut off and the shaking stopped with it. Silence reigned in the underground well once more. Linkali turned to her friend, who was still staring openmouthed at her.

"W…Were you _expecting _that to happen?" he blurted out.

"Absolutely not," Lin, whose original plan had been to use the Megaton Hammer to chip the passage wider, replied. "But it's convenient that it worked out that way, isn't it?" She grinned as she banished the weighty weapon. Bartal's eyes grew wider. (The girl watching him had seen his full range of expression, and knew that Bartal was going to have to find some other way to express his shock, should it grow again; his eyes and mouth were already as wide as they could go.)

"You just—at least, I think—no, it _was_!" the Hylian boy stammered. He jabbed a finger at Lin's empty hands. "You just used magic, didn't you?"

"…It's quite possible," Linkali answered, holding off on responding until she was sure she could speak without a nervous stutter. Bartal's expression had gone from stunned to accusative in a matter of seconds, and now suspicion darkened his amber eyes. "Then again, I'm a Hylian, so it's not likely that I'd be able to do so, right?"

" 'Not likely' meaning 'impossible'," the boy muttered, though his face and tone of voice said he didn't believe his own words. He shook his head and sighed. Clearly, he wanted to press further, but Hylian courtesy kept him from asking any more of those prying questions. Linkali had never been more grateful for her people's secretive, unobtrusive natures, though she wondered just how much longer it would hold. Bartal might be a Hylian—raised not to question the actions of others—but he had known Lin long enough that he had no compunctions about breaking rules of decorum with her. He'd seen enough today that if he didn't start prying for answers soon, he'd probably go mental.

Walking sideways through the cramped passageway, Linkali and Bartal made their way to the other end. The tunnel floor had fallen in such a way that it created something like steps, leveling off at the bottom for about ten feet and then forming steps that led upwards. The tunnel ended in a small room, and a vine-wrapped ledge that the two young adults easily hoisted themselves over. At the top of the ledge stood a small door.

Linkali paused in front of the door, looking over at Bartal to see how he was doing. Navi was shuddering with anticipation, her light brightening and dimming slightly; she could sense something behind the door, lying in wait for the two Hylian youth. Lin was tempted to ask Bartal to wait safely outside the door while she took care of whatever monster lurked there. But her friend's amber eyes were bright and eager; he had one hand parked jauntily on his hip and a cocky grin stretching up the side of his face. The young woman hesitated, wondering if she should still ask him to wait for her to finish in the other room. But Bartal pushed his hand against the iron door, which slid up and revealed the next room. "Let's get a move on," he told her, motioned for her to enter first. Linkali snickered softly, amused despite the building tension as she stepped through the doorframe.

The room was large and square, with a dirt floor and brown-stained walls. The air there felt somewhat cooler than in the rest of the well, and the smell of decay was much heavier. But the only thing that drew Linkali's attention was the circle of pale, spindly trees in the center of the room. She walked tentatively between two of them, listening to Bartal's equally hesitant footsteps behind her. She stopped in front of one of the stalks, her jaw dropping open as she realized it was not a tree, but an _arm_—an arm with a red-clawed hand on the end of it!

**(3)**"It's strange that there would just be a bunch of…_hands_ sticking up," she murmured to Navi as the fairy bobbed up beside her cheek. "Seriously, it's a little creepy."

"I've seen this before," Navi told her softly. "I know what it is…but I can't remember."

"That's all right." Linkali glanced at her fairy partner out of the corner of her eyes and offered her a consolatory smile. "I'm sure it will come back to you soon enough." Raising her voice so Bartal would hear, she added, "Until we know what this is, I think it would be a good idea if we didn't touch—"

She broke off there as a strangled shout echoed out through the room. Her whole body stiffened; her dark blue eyes shot open wide. "That is _never_ a good sound…" She whipped around to see Bartal struggling against the grip of one of the hands, choking as it wrenched his head back sharply. Though worry fired through her at the sight of her friend in the grip of an unknown monster, she couldn't help also feeling a strange combination of amusement and embarrassment. "Bartal, what did I just _say_?" she demanded.

"You didn't say it soon enough!" Bartal retorted in a strangled voice. Linkali started making her way towards him, stepping cautiously around the other hands. They were swaying slightly, as if in the hopes of brushing against another Hylian to grab. She was a few feet away from her friend when the dirt floor shook and burst upwards. Lin jerked around yet again, frozen in her tracks at the sight of the monster that had appeared. Her heart hammered against her breastbone, and her stomach churned with revulsion.

It was stout and hunched, with a sloping back and long neck, and stubby arms that tapered to dull points. Its eyes were sunken and black, and a massive mouth gaped below them. Its skin was a dirty, sickly white, spattered with smears of reddish-purple stains. It moved by sliding across the ground, like a gruesome, deformed slug. "Navi," Linkali whispered, "now would be a very good time for you to remember what that thing is called and how it's defeated."

"I think—"

"At least ONE of us is!" Bartal blurted out, sounding offended by the fact that his friend was focusing more on identifying the monster and less on freeing him.

Linkali balked as the strangeness of the situation struck her. Here was Bartal: angry that he had yet to be freed, when it was his fault he was even trapped in the first place. Though there was fear in his words, there was also a rather comical indignance. She turned her face just slightly in his direction, keeping one eye on the monster. "Hey, Boy-who-Can't-Keep-His-Hands-to-Himself,"**(3a) **she jibed sardonically, just loud enough for him to hear above the strange sucking noises of the sliding monster. "Shh!" She heard Bartal grumble a comment about what the girl could do to herself; turning back to her fairy friend, she added, "You were saying, Navi?"

"It's called a Dead Hand," the stocky fairy replied. She sounded a little confused at how cavalier the two youths' treatment of each other was. Linkali nodded to herself and began edging away from the Dead Hand warily. It seemed more focused on the captive Hylian, rather than the one who could evade it freely. Jerkily, it stretched its neck towards Bartal's upraised chest and lowered its jaw like a snake preparing to swallow an egg. Bartal's eyes bulged wide with fear and he began to struggle more in the grasp that held him fast.

Linkali drew her sword and lunged at the hideous monster with a loud cry. Her blade connected, slicing a furious line down the side of the Dead Hand's face. It squalled eerily and jerked its head back. The hand holding Bartal released its grip, and the Hylian boy stumbled back a few steps with a shudder. Lin dealt the Dead Hand a second strike, then a third, before it began shuffling away. She tried to go after it for a fourth assault; her sword seemed to bounce off of its back. The Dead Hand vanished under a shroud of dirt, leaving behind two very stunned youth and an anxious fairy.

Lin turned to her friend. "Thanks for drawing that monster out, Bartal," she puffed breathlessly; somehow, she knew that his capture had been what lured the Dead Hand out from the ground.

The boy scoffed, dusting himself off briskly. "Yeah, you're welcome," he muttered. He began walking away from her backwards, despite both Linkali and Navi opening their mouths and raising their hands in warning. "Now, if you'll excuse me—" He broke off there as he backed into another one of the arms; the clawed hand clamped down on his head and yanked it back. Linkali gave voice to a single, unrestrained laugh before clapping her hand guiltily over her mouth. "…This is _not_ my day, is it?"

"Doesn't appear so." The girl's voice was rich with concealed laughter. Bartal eyed her shrewdly.

"Would you kindly get this thing's clammy hand offa me?" he asked.

"Patience, my friend. All in due time." Linkali turned her attention back to the emerging Dead Hand.

"You _suck_!" Bartal hissed in disbelief. Lin shot him a friendly look out of the corner of her eyes. He did not look nearly as amused as she was, which made the girl hesitate. Perhaps she _was_ taking the situation a bit too lightly…but she was only acting the way she did because she felt that she was in control of the current situation. She would never let anything bad happen to her oldest friend; in fact, she'd give her life for him.

When the Dead Hand drew close enough, Linkali unleashed a furious barrage on its pale, ugly head until it was driven back once more. She watched its retreat coldly, then turned back slightly to look at Bartal. "Head to the edge of the room," she ordered gently. The boy stared.

"What?" he burst out softly. Lin offered him a friendly grin.

"Head to the edge of the room," she repeated. "It's safer there. You won't get grabbed. I'll figure out a way to draw this thing out on my own. Thanks for landing me six free hits."

"But—"

"Bartal, just _go_, okay? You'll be safer at the edge of the room."

Bartal stared at his friend in silence for a minute or two. His amber eyes then shifted very conspicuously from the Hylian girl to another one of the pale, scrawny arms reaching up from the gravelike floor, then back again. He raised one eyebrow skeptically, and began walking towards the arm without another word. He reached out, tickled the arm lightly with his fingertips, and choked (though he sounded almost bored) as it grabbed his head. Throwing his arms limply up in the air, the boy declared in a flat tone of voice, "Oh no. I appear to be trapped once more. Save me, Linkali, for I am frightened of the creepy zombie hand monster." He enunciated every syllable, too, probably for comedic overdose.

Linkali snorted with amusement as she stepped in front of her male friend. "You're a _dork_, you know that?" she asked. She could see the same mirth she felt on his face, and shook her head slowly.

"Least I'm a useful dork," Bartal retorted smugly. "Hup—behind you!" **(2)**

Lin whirled around with seconds to spare; the Dead Hand was already lowering its neck stiffly to take a bite from behind. The girl's blade cut deep into its saggy flesh, over and over again, until finally the monster gave a drawn-out, dying groan. It crumpled forward, flopping limply to the ground like a dead fish. The hands sank back into the floor swiftly, and the Dead Hand followed suit. Linkali looked over to see Bartal dusting himself off smugly, as if _he_ were the one who had slain the beast. He turned to meet her look and gave her a sheepish grin.

"So, this chest over there just appeared out of nowhere," he told her, pointing to the wooden box with a thumb. "Were you going to claim your reward, or can I have it?"

Linkali sheathed her sword and made her way eagerly to the spot where the chest lay. With Navi's shivering glow to light the heart of the chest, she reached inside and withdrew the item that lay there. It looked like a magnifying lens, with its round head and narrow shaft; there were three spiky decorations along the upper rim of the lens. The glass in the middle was tinted a deep fuchsia, with a darker diamond-shape in the middle that almost looked like a cat's narrowed pupil—giving the Lens the overall appearance of a rather sinister eye.

The young woman held the item triumphantly over her head. "Haha!" she laughed exuberantly. "Finally!"

Navi zipped around the Lens of Truth excitedly. "Now we can go back to the Shadow Temple and see which of the shadow clones is the real—…_Oh._" She broke off and trailed off awkwardly when she saw that her Hylian partner's expression had gone from one of triumph to one that seemed to say in bold, capital letters _OH MERCIFUL DIN._ Linkali's dark blue eyes flicked warily to Bartal; the boy was standing with his arms folded over his chest and a suspicious scowl on his face.

"Yeah, about that…" he began slowly.

_Of course, he never _stopped_ being suspicious of my motives for coming down here, _Linkali thought. _Sometimes, I forget that other people can lie with their body language._ She shrugged, resigning herself to her fate. She'd been caught red-handed; none but a Hylian on a mission—and perhaps a _suicidal _Hylian, at that—would brave a place like this and battle monsters like the Dead Hand. Still, she reckoned—perhaps it wasn't an entirely bad thing. The weight of being the Hero's Incarnation was one she had been longing to share with someone for quite some time now. Who better than her old friend? Motioning to Bartal to follow after her, she led him out of the small room and back out to the ledge in front of the door. There she sat, dangling her feet off the edge. The boy followed suit, his light eyes dark with suspicion.

"So, you care to tell me what this is all about?" he asked.

"Lin, you can't!" Navi shrilled as the girl opened her mouth. Linkali turned to look up at her. "This has to remain a secret—no one can know!"

"He has a right to know, after all I just put him through," Lin replied calmly, though her heart was hammering in her chest at the prospect of revealing her greatest secret to someone else—the secret that she had already worked so hard to keep. "Besides, Navi…I think it's time someone else knew, and I trust Bartal." Again, she thought of how much of a burden it had become, the knowledge that she was perhaps Hyrule's last hope for freedom from Ganon's reign of terror. It had been even worse to bear alone; she was almost eager to spill the story.

"What's going on, Lin?" Bartal queried. There was no longer any suspicion in his voice—it had been replaced by gentle curiosity and concern. Linkali looked over at him and smiled. Though she was clearly relieved that the time had come to speak, there was a hard glint of seriousness in her eyes.

"Before I say anything," she said softly, "you have to promise me that you will never breathe a word of this to anyone. _No one_ can know about this—promise me that."

"I'll swear it on anything you want," Bartal assured her. "My life, our village, my hillboard."

"Our friendship?"

"Even that. I swear on our friendship that no one else will ever hear what you say to me now." Bartal winked. "Tell me what's going on, Lin. Start from the beginning, and don't spare me anything—surely our friendship is worth that much to you."

_I think it's worth more to me than what I'm about to tell you,_ Lin thought. "I don't exactly know how to begin," she murmured. "I almost want to dance around the harsh truth and tell you in the most roundabout of terms…but I've had someone do that to me in the past"—she remembered 'Aldez' with a grin—"and it doesn't really make things any better. In fact, it only makes things more confusing. Besides, you deserve complete honesty, after everything I just dragged you through to get the Lens of Truth."

"Why do you need that thing, anyway?" Bartal asked. Just as Lin had predicted, the boy had reached a point where courtesy would kill him; no matter how prying they might be, he was going to ask her whatever questions he wanted answered. And his female friend did not regret that she would be answering them all.

"To understand that, you'd need to understand my mission first and foremost," Linkali replied. "You know that King Ganon, the Princess Zelda, and the Hero of Time each held a piece of the Triforce."

"And the Hero got Courage, despite the fact that maybe _Intelligence_ would have been better suited to him." Without even looking, Linkali reached up with catlike speed and managed to block Navi before the furious fairy could slam herself full-force into the back of the boy's skull. "What about it?"

"That piece of the Triforce didn't die with him," the Hylian girl replied quietly. Bartal blinked curiously in the low light of the Well. "Despite what everyone in our land thinks, the Triforce of Courage is still very much around." She paused, gulping for breath. Her heart was thudding in panic against her ribs, and her pulse was hammering in her ears and fingertips; her belly and throat burned hot, while the rest of her body was ice-cold. "It's still around," she repeated. "…I have it. I have it, because I am the Incarnation of the Hero of Time."

Bartal was silent.

Linkali struggled to raise her lowered eyes to meet his. She half-expected him to laugh and call her a liar, but she knew that he would see the truth in her gaze. (For perhaps the first time in her life, she was actually grateful for her soul-eyes.) The young man was staring at her, mouth half-agape. "I only wish I could show it to you," Lin continued. "But I can't make the mark appear whenever I want it to; it only shows up when I'm near someone who carries another piece of the Triforce. Like Zelda—Aldez." Words began tumbling out of her, the pent-up strain of secrecy finally being released. "Aldez is Zelda, Bartal—the Triforce of Wisdom has kept her alive all these years, that's why she's so old. She's the one who told me—who told me…" She paused, taking a deep breath and striving for composure. As glad as she was to finally tell someone about this, she had to be calm and serious. "She's the one who told me about _my_ piece," she finished slowly.

"You have the Triforce of Courage," Bartal repeated blankly. Linkali nodded. "And you're the Incarnation of the guy who used to have it. So, what—does that make you, like, the Hero come back from the dead or something?"

"No." Lin brought to mind what Zelda had told her that first night. "Even though I'm his Incarnation"—the word sent a jolt running through her, a pang that almost hurt a little—"I'm not him in a second coming. The part of his spirit that Destiny chose for the title of Hero—I share that with him. I have a piece of his fighting spirit inside me, as well as the Triforce piece that he carried; the two are tied together. But I'm not the Hero of Time, and I never will be. I'm just…I'm Lin, and I always will be."

Bartal hummed thoughtfully. "What does that have to do with this creepy Well?" he asked. "Are you looking to prove yourself to me or something? No"—he raised a hand to stifle his friend's response—"I remember now. It was something the fairy said."

'_The fairy' has a name,_ Navi thought irritably to Lin. The girl spared her partner a brief, fond grin.

"You need that lens-thing to get through some Temple," Bartal said, pointing to the artifact in her lap. "And to find the real something. Tell me about that."

Linkali swallowed her racing heart. Now that she was in the thick of the revelation, the adrenaline rush was starting to fade, leaving her feeling a little shaky. Her stomach still burned fiercely, and her pulse continued to hammer in her ears. "Yes…that's the part that explains everything," she murmured. "Bartal…because of my role as his Incarnation, I share the Hero's destiny of defeating the Evil King and freeing Hyrule from his grasp."

She expected some kind of disbelieving outburst from her male friend. After all, here he was, listening to his oldest friend tell him that she was destined to commit regicide. (As much as Hylians might hate Ganon, he _was_ their King.) Surely he would have some protest about how foolish this venture was, or how futile any attempt against the Evil King would be, or even how terrified he was for her safety. But Bartal was silent, apparently too stunned to say a thing. The silence that stretched between them was punctuated only by the groans of the Well and the steady dripping of water unseen. After a few minutes, Linkali spoke again.

"The Hero, before he took on Ganon, awakened six Sages," she continued. "They each gave him a Medallion to add their power to his. When Ganon killed the Hero, the Sages sealed away their remaining powers, as well as the memories of their Sagehood, and went back to the way they had been before awakening." She swallowed hard, the sides of her dry throat sticking together uncomfortably. It felt wonderful to lay everything out in front of her friend, but _Goddesses_ it was making her antsy. "Only their power can repair the Master Sword, and only its power can defeat Ganon. It's my task to return the Medallions to the Sages and break their seals. Once they've been restored to their full power, they will be able to make the sword whole again, and I will be able to use it to take down the Evil King."

Finally, Bartal spoke, his voice soft. "Is that why you keep leaving the village for days on end?" he asked. Lin nodded.

"Yes. I've been out trying to find the Sages to return their Medallions to them," she replied. "It hasn't been easy—I've seen my fair share of extreme environments and faced some very difficult battles…" Smiling, she unfastened the pouch of Medallions from her belt and emptied them into the palm of her hand. The orange, purple, and yellow objects—the Medallions of Spirit, Shadow, and Light—glowed slightly in the darkness. Bartal's eyes grew huge. "But I'm already halfway done." Linkali picked up the purple, coin-like Shadow Medallion. "I needed the Lens of Truth to be able to see through the illusions of the Sage of Shadow; she can copy herself endlessly and attacks with all of her clones clawing together. Now that I have the Lens, I should be able to subdue her easily and return her Medallion to her."

As she slid the objects back into their pouch, she avoided telling him just how vicious Imparo was, and how honestly she had feared for her life when battling the corrupted Sage. Bartal was silent again, seeming to digest all of this information. Finally, after a bit, he spoke up. "You know…As strange as this all is, I'm not completely surprised," he said. Linkali raised an eyebrow. "I mean, come on, Lin—there's always been something radically different about you. You're not like everyone else in Hyrule…you don't flinch and hide; you face everything head-on and aren't afraid of anything." He smiled weakly—clearly, he was overwhelmed by all he had just heard—and rested a hand on her thigh. "But you're still my friend, no matter what. Even if I think it's dangerous and more than a little bit crazy, and even though I'd never have the _balls _to do what you're doing…I'll support you." His grin grew in strength as Linkali looked up at him; her eyes were shining with happiness and gratitude. "I'll support you, Lin. And I promise, no matter what happens, I'll never tell anyone what you just told me."

Linkali pulled her friend into a tight embrace. She was weak with relief and glad to lose herself in the arms of her closest friend. It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of her chest, and every breath she took felt like a blessing. She knew Navi disapproved of her having told Bartal, but she was honestly glad that she had; it was somewhat consoling that the boy no longer had reason to suspect that she wasn't constantly leaving the village to avoid contact with him. Bartal rubbed Lin's shoulders and back gently, and it took the girl a few moments to realize that a few tears had slipped down her cheeks. Only three—that was all. She burrowed her face down into his shoulder and gave a contented sigh. Bartal truly was her greatest friend, and she was never gladder to have him beside her.

* * *

Two days later, the first blue-gray light of morning saw Linkali, Bartal, and Navi standing at the gates of Kokoria Village. The Hylian girl was packed and ready to venture into the Shadow Temple a second time, and she was glad to finally have someone to see her off and wish her a safe journey…someone who knew exactly what her journey would entail. It was clear that Bartal would much rather Lin stay back at the village for a few days more, but he was not about to argue with the young woman.

"Din protect you and bring you safely home again," he whispered, evoking a very old Hylian expression that was often said to travelers. Nayru and Farore had once been included in the benediction, but over time, their names had been dropped; Din was the one who gave King Ganon his power, so clearly she was the one you wanted to protect someone. (If a Goddess had _that much_ power to give out…) "Be careful, Lin."

Linkali nodded. "I will, I promise," she told him. The two embraced one last time before the girl pulled back. She smiled at Bartal, who returned the grin. Then, she began walking away, stepping through Kokoria's gates and out into the open, dangerous Field of Hyrule. The morning was cool and quiet, with only the scattered buzz of crickets to break the misty silence. Linkali took a deep breath, pulling the calm of the early morning world into her heart. She turned to Bartal one last time and waved a fond farewell to her friend. He waved back, and Lin continued walking, setting her sights on the place that had once been Kakariko Village.

* * *

Bartal watched Linkali walk away until she was out of sight, smiling weakly to himself. He was worried—truly, he feared for her life—but at the same time, he couldn't help feeling rather confident. He hadn't been joking when he'd told Lin in the Well that there had always been something different about her. Now that he had learned what she carried inside her, her uncanny bravery made all the more sense to him. _With that Triforce piece, I'd bet money that you can do this, Lin,_ he thought.

She was strong—she'd already broken the seals of half the Sages. She was brave—he'd watched her dismantle the Dead Hand without a shred of fear or hesitation. (And he'd been thoroughly amused by their banter during the fight.) If anyone in Hyrule could defeat the Evil King once and for all, it would be Linkali. Bartal grinned, privately glad that he was already so close to the girl who could save Hyrule—a little bit of friendly association never hurt a body. Still smiling, he turned around to walk back to his house before his mother could stir and hear him come in…

…and stopped dead.

The man who had been standing behind Bartal was tall enough to cast a shadow over the youth, and broad enough of shoulder to snap him in half. The woman beside him was lean and willowy, but there was a supple strength in her limbs. Both of their gazes fixed Bartal to the ground with their fire and intensity. He gulped softly, nervously, his hands starting to tremble at his sides.

"Good morning, Bartal," the man rumbled, his voice deceptively warm and gentle.

"G-good morning, Ha-Hatoren," Bartal stuttered in nervous reply. "H-Halvara." Again, he swallowed hard, and bit his lower lip. Linkali's father laid a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder, his grip gentle and painless, but unbearably firm. The Hylian youth licked his lips anxiously, his eyes darting between the two adults.

"Would you like to come over for breakfast?" Hatoren asked, his deep, rich voice somewhat dry with a whisper. "There are a few matters I would like to discuss with you." Bartal could see no other option but to obey. He smothered a worried groan as he found himself being steered in the direction of the two Hylians' home.

**...That probably isn't going to end well.**

**(1) Lin wouldn't entrust her little sister to anyone but herself.**

**(2) I _know _that in order to actually get into the Well, you have to squeeze through a kid-sized tunnel. Ignore that fact, though.  
**

**(3)(4) When I originally thought up this whole exchange between Lin and Bartal, it flowed so smoothly (because it was only dialogue). Now that I had to put it in the context of a story though, it seems a bit jerky to me. Is it?**

**(3a) This line just slays me every time I read it. For some reason, it strikes me as being the quintessential Linkali line: blunt, honest, and a little bit cruel.  
**


	19. 18: Imparo, Sage of Shadow

**Those who have added this story to their Alerts will probably have gotten a few notices for updates of earlier chapters. The prologue, in particular, has been updated, and now has a rather important plot point. So go read that, if you haven't already! =)**

"Do you think you did the right thing?" Navi asked. Linkali, who was in the process of hoisting herself up onto the ledge in front of the entrance of the Shadow Temple, balked at the question. Her right foot, hiked up high with the toe of her boot jammed into a crevice, suddenly slipped out of its niche. Navi yelped with alarm; the young Hylian gasped raggedly, catching herself just before she fell the six feet back to the ground. She clung desperately to the wall for a few moments before slowly peeling herself away and starting to climb again. After a minute or so, she spoke.

"What do you mean, Navi?" she asked.

"Do you think you did the right thing, telling Bartal about our mission?" the fairy repeated. Linkali did not answer until she had successfully hauled herself up the remainder of the wall and had a firm grip on the top.

"I don't see what harm could come of it," she grunted, dragging herself over the ridge. "I mean, as silly as he is sometimes, Bartal's not an imbecile; he knows better than to go spreading gossip about what I told him. He's good with secrets, too—he never tells unless he's given no other choice. Why do you ask?" She knelt down and dusted off the front of her shirt and mantle.

"Just a feeling I had, that's all," Navi said, somewhat faintly. Linkali paused in her brushing and turned to her fairy friend curiously. The blue woman shook herself out. "I'm sure it's nothing. If you trust him, Lin, then I have no reason not to."

"I'm glad to know that." Lin pushed herself off the ground and put her hands on her hips. "Well—there's the Shadow Temple." She began walking resolutely towards it, a wry grin spreading across her face. Stubborn determination burned in her dark eyes. "Let's see if this is any easier the second time around."

* * *

With the Lens of Truth in her possession, the Shadow Temple _was_ decidedly easier for Linkali to traverse. In fact, now that she didn't need to constantly test everything to see whether or not it was an illusion, she was actually able to move through the Temple at greater speed. It was awe-inspiring (and almost a little frightening) to see just how many things were mere glamours; Lin couldn't believe how insidious the Shadow Temple was.

Of course, she learned the hard way that the enhanced sight that the mystical Lens provided came at a price. Only a few hours into her first day in the Temple's belly, she was overcome with a powerful weariness, and became so dizzy she could barely stand. Navi seemed startled to learn that the girl did not know that the Lens of Truth drained its user's magic power—a commodity of which Linkali did not have much. **(1) **Help came in the form of small green bottles that the duo sometimes spotted around the Temple. The fairy was quick to point out that though they had obviously been lying around for quite some time, their contents were perfectly safe to drink; the young Hylian even banished a few and would consume them as she went through the Temple. A bit of rest also restored some of her strength, though Navi warned her that she should probably be more careful when it came to how frequently she used the Lens's magic. (Lin was somewhat gladdened by this; as interesting as it was, the artifact's strange way of altering her vision got very disorienting after a while.)

Many of the monsters in the Shadow Temple seemed to remember her. Linkali supposed that, being undead, they probably hadn't been _killed_ by her earlier assaults on them; however, this did not seem to affect their ability to recognize the young Hylian who had mercilessly ripped past them with sword, bow, and hammer. Lin didn't know if she had actually _hurt_ the monsters—but whatever she had done to them, they hadn't liked it. They avoided conflict with her like the plague, with even the ReDeads holding down the urge to paralyze her with a screech. Those that did not attempt to get out of the Hylian's way did not acknowledge her existence or draw attention to themselves in any way. Linkali wasn't about to complain or instigate, for the lack of fighting meant she was able to clear the Shadow Temple with greater ease than before, and could conserve more of her energy for the fight against Imparo. Being left alone also made it easier for her to curl up in a corner and rest undisturbed, a fact which she took full advantage of.

Though her passage through the Temple was almost blissfully easy, Linkali couldn't forget what lay in wait for her at the end of the dungeon. The thought of facing the same creature that had turned her into a shredded mess still set her heart racing, but the youth was determined to stand and fight. Imparo would soon find out that Lin was not a girl who ran away twice.

* * *

The hole that led down to the final room of the Shadow Temple gaped like a dark mouth. Linkali perched at the edge of its jaws, gazing down its throat without a single sound. Her heart was bounding in her chest, her palms slick with nervous sweat. She swallowed hard, pushing down the bitter worry that burned in her throat, and glanced over at Navi. The blue fairy rubbed against her cheek tenderly and murmured assurances that she would do better this time. Lin nodded firmly, fixing on her face the best daredevil grin she could manage—though her eyes betrayed that she was not completely confident. Then, with a deep breath, she gathered herself up and plunged down into the black hole before her.

The drop was long and a little bit frightening, but the Hylian youth clenched her teeth together hard to keep a drawn-out yell from escaping. She kept her body curled and her head lowered, pointing her feet towards the tightly-stretched skin of the massive drumhead that awaited her below. She landed on the balls of her feet in a low crouch, bouncing slightly with the impact. Her head snapped up sharply, and her keen blue eyes swept the room. Slowly, she eased herself back onto her feet again, keeping her ears pricked for any sounds.

The battlefield was empty and silent.

Linkali looked around warily, every muscle in her body tensed and ready for action. Suspicion darkened her hard-edged gaze. "Imparo!" she called to the darkness surrounding the drum. "I'm back!" Her words failed to draw out a challenger of any sort. Had Imparo left the Shadow Temple? Navi's shivering light seemed to suggest otherwise; though the fairy could sense the corrupted Sage, it was clear that not even _she_ knew where Imparo was.

Experience slapped her insolently upside the head. Lin stopped shifting her gaze around the dark room, and instead snapped over her shoulder and looked down at the shadow trailing behind her. It was dark—unnaturally so. Though it followed her every move perfectly, when Linkali turned to study it, a pair of glowing red eyes and a grinning, toothy mouth appeared on the shadow's head. The girl frowned; her shadow smirked and wiggled the fingers of one of its black hands in a condescending wave of greeting. The young Hylian was not amused. "You coward," she muttered darkly. Her shadow's smile dimmed somewhat at the edges, and its eyes narrowed.

Imparo gathered herself up from Linkali's shadow in a surging wave of black, and leapt over the girl's head like a crow in flight. She hit the drum with the palms of her dangerously-clawed hands and vaulted nimbly onto her feet, spinning around lightly to face the young warrior. She was a lean, shapely creature, with long, spindly arms and legs. Her bare skin was black as the heart of the Well; she did not appear to wear any clothes, although it didn't look like she really had anything to cover up. Her blood-red eyes glowed from the dark setting of her face, horribly bright and piercing. She stood in front of Lin boldly, hands on her hips, head tipped to the side. _"Back again,"_ she hissed, sounding a little bored. One of her long-fingered hands delicately swept a few strands of night-black hair from her face. _"We see you have yet to learn from your mistakes."_

As Linkali watched, Imparo stretched her body in opposite directions, dividing herself. _"Why did you come back?"_ the two shadows asked, their sibilant voices making eerie harmony with each other. _"Are you really so foolish? You will never defeat us; we will always win."_ Each of the two stretched and divided, making for a total of four shadows. All of them leered at the youth before them. _"We will not let you escape this time, little child. You tricked us once before, but never again."_ The four shadows each split, and eight of Imparo's clones faced Lin. _"Your blood is much too sweet for us to lose the opportunity to drink. We enjoyed our first taste—we want more."_ Again, they divided. _"We ask you now, child,"_ Imparo whispered in her many voices, _"are you ready to die?"_

"I figure I'll have to someday," Linkali replied as coolly as she could, summoning the Lens of Truth into her hands. All thirty-two of Imparo's eyes fixed on the artifact warily, and all sixteen of her grins slackened simultaneously. The shadow beast and her many clones looked hesitant. Lin lifted the Lens to her eye and focused power to the hand holding it.

The edges of the young woman's vision faded out, becoming lost in a blurry haze of reddish magic. The center of it, though—that which was focused into the Lens—became clearer and more defined. The edges of objects looked sharper, like the world looks after a heavy rainstorm washes the dust from the air. Linkali grinned.

The ground before her was empty.

She could still see Imparo's clones vaguely in the misty haze of her peripheral vision, but when she looked at them with the Lens of Truth, they disappeared. Her gaze raked the ranks of them, seeking the controller among the clones. There—in the middle! Linkali's smile broadened as she focused her stare on the one that would not disappear: Imparo, the original, the controller. She lowered the Lens and pointed at the one among many. "You," she growled. Imparo hissed like a soaked cat, and the clones dissipated. **(2)**

The controller of shadows gathered herself up and leapt into the air, streaking towards the young Hylian like a diving falcon. Linkali drew her sword, bracing herself for impact. Imparo was blurring through the still air of the drum room. Her target moved almost as swiftly, thrusting her sword up sideways just in time to block Imparo's clawed hands as the shadow swept them down to strike. Lin felt the impact of their collision travel through her arms and into her chest; she struggled against her opponent's strong-armed assault as the shadow-woman drove down with fearsome strength, and actually managed to turn the blocked blow aside with a loud cry of exertion. Imparo rolled with the counterstrike, bouncing off the taut head of the drum and flying over Lin's head. She swiped her claws down the back of the girl's right shoulder, drawing out a shout of pain; when Linkali thrust out in an attempt to stab the shadow, she found that Imparo had vanished.

"Son of a…" she muttered, trailing off before an actual obscenity crossed her tongue. Lin hated swearing any more than she honestly had to; profanity was something she preferred to use sparingly. (That way, it made much more of an impact when she actually _did_ swear.) She shook her head, flexing her shoulder tenderly.

"_You are much too slow,"_ Imparo taunted. Linkali whipped around just in time to see her shadow rise up from the floor and leap over her head. Imparo hissed like winter wind through bare-branched trees as she turned around on the drum._ "Shivering little child…You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."_ And she split into two, then two again. The four of them stalked closer to Lin, claws bared menacingly. The girl tried to forget her shoulder wound, and brought the Lens to her eye again. The clones halted, peering at her curiously.

Linkali's gaze flicked from one to the next, all the way down the line and back again. Each of the clones disappeared when she looked at them through the Lens. She went up and down the line again, hoping to see if perhaps she had missed something, but, the four were revealed to be false._ That means that the real Imparo isn't among them!_ she thought with a thrill of realization. _But if she isn't there, then where is—?_

"LIN! Behind you!" Navi shrieked; the Hylian youth jolted in surprise and whipped around in time to see her own red-eyed shadow rearing up monstrously behind her. Its toothy mouth gaped wider than the Dead Hand's had; it looked ready to lunge and consume her on the spot. Lin's pointed ears twitched at the rapid thumping of the four clones' feet as they moved to rush her from behind. Her heart hammering and her hand shaking, Linkali took a swift glance at her towering shadow through the Lens of Truth. It did not disappear, which made it the real Imparo. She banished the Lens quickly and lifted her sword just as her own shadow prepared to smother her; the four clones were so close she could hear their excited panting. _Farore, guide my arm!_ she thought desperately, and stabbed upwards with her blade.

Imparo unwound with an earth-shaking scream of pain as Linkali's sword drove into her dark flesh. She flailed backwards; the clones darted like black birds to rejoin the whole, sweeping past Lin without so much as glancing at her. Imparo vaulted backwards and disappeared, leaving the room reverberating with her agonized cries.

"Don't know how I did that," Lin said breathlessly. "But ten Rupees says she won't let me do it again." Her heart was racing furiously, and her muscles were jerking and shivering with adrenaline. She felt as if her body wanted to fly in all different directions at once. "Where is she—where is she?"

The room was quiet, still, but Linkali felt something strange bubbling up inside her chest. It was different from the pounding of her heart—steadier, slower. As strange as it sounded to say it, she thought it felt…like a memory. A memory of a beating drum; the more she listened to its strange, almost hypnotic rhythm, the more she swore she could feel the floor bouncing and moving under her feet. No sound reached her stiffened ears, so the beat she heard was only the product of her own mind. But why—where had it come from? Lin had no more time to think. Her pricked ears heard an airy whoosh from behind, and she turned just in time to see Imparo speeding towards her with claws outstretched.

The blow caught Linkali right to the chest, and black claws burrowed deep down into her front as the shadow clung on tightly. The impact, and Imparo's stubborn weight, knocked the Hylian clean off her feet, sending her flying across the open ground. She struck the head of the drum on her injured shoulder, and clamped her teeth around the pained yell that struggled to tear out of her. The force of impact against the taut drum-skin bounced her back up into the air hard enough and at an angle that she actually flipped head over heels. Imparo released her in midflight and vanished, while Lin thudded down hard on her chest with a soft grunt of pain. She hurried to push herself back upright again, breathing heavily.

"_Are you still so foolishly brave?"_ Imparo's reedy voice asked from behind Linkali. The youth turned around jerkily just in time to see a flicker of dark shadow as her opponent vanished. She scowled. From her left, she heard a similar voice say, _"You will not be for much longer."_

_That's two clones I have to worry about,_ Linkali decided. She gripped her sword in one hand and the Lens of Truth in the other. Her eyes flicked nervously from side to side.

"_We will break you slowly,"_ the first voice assured her calmly from the right side. Lin whipped around just in time to see one of Imparo's shadows driving towards her through the air, its claws spread wide, its fanged mouth open hungrily. The young Hylian acted on swift reflex, and ducked to avoid the full strike; instead of digging in and tearing deep, the razor-keen claws grazed thin lines of fire from shoulder to shoulder. Linkali couldn't keep down a soft gasp at the sudden pain, and she cringed as she straightened herself up. Her gaze darted after the clone, but the speedy demon was already gone from sight. Lin turned back just in time to see the second shadow rushing her from the front. There was no time to activate the Lens in her hand or even ready her sword. The girl took Imparo's blow to the stomach, gasping breathlessly as she reeled backwards with the impact. She bounced twice on the drum-head, then scrambled clumsily to her feet on the third bounce. She looked around wildly, but the shadowy creature had vanished.

The next twenty or so minutes were a blur for Linkali. Whenever Imparo would appear, the girl would keep her senses tuned in to see how many clones would be facing her, for more often than not they would announce their presence and suddenly vanish whenever she turned to look at them; she had to be able to distinguish between their creepily similar voices. She also had to be fast when determining which one of her opponents was the real foe and which ones were mere illusions; even when she _did_ have enough time to find the controller, though, Imparo was still blindingly fast, and could rush her before she even had time to react. Pain from the injuries she'd already received weighed heavily on Lin's reflexes, and the strain only multiplied as each failed attempt to find the real Imparo ended in another new wound. But despite the hurt, and despite her opponent's continued taunts, Linkali refused to give in.

Bleeding from her shoulders, face, back, chest, and belly, the young woman stood on trembling legs. Her constant use of the Lens of Truth was steadily dragging her down and weakening her. Not to mention, in spite of all her hard work, the only blow she had managed to land on Imparo was the single stab. The solitary injury didn't seem to impair the corrupted Sage of Shadow at all, and if nothing else, the battle was invigorating her. She giggled and hissed from the edges of the battlefield, whispering threats of death and violence to the tired warrior.

Now a strange stillness had fallen over the darkened room. Linkali stood in the center of the drum, sword gripped tightly. Her head was low, her breathing ragged strangely loud in the quiet. Her whole body was screaming in pain and weariness, but she stubbornly remained on her feet. She resisted the urge to call out to her fierce opponent, knowing full well that Imparo would call any bluff she made and pay her back in spades. Instead, she waited; the former Sage would surely attack once she realized that the Hylian confronting her was not going to take the initiative. The minutes stretched thin in the darkness, passing by steadily without any sort of movement from the two combatants. It was a standoff, an impasse. Lin huffed out her breath, shuddering weakly at the numerous twinges that jolted through her at the motion.

"_Are you tired?"_ Imparo jeered, unseen. _"Do you hurt? Stupid child—poor, stupid child. You will not best us. We will break you down, first by body, then by spirit; we will make you scream in the night and beg for death."_

Linkali had no time to react to the threat; Imparo lunged without warning from the shadows and drove her off her feet. Her taloned fingers dug into the girl's shoulders cruelly, and her mouth gaped with a maniacal grin. Lin lost her footing with a cry and stumbled back before landing hard on the head of the massive drum. She knew she had only a split second to react. When her bottom struck the drum, the Hylian youth surged up with the rebound and stabbed at the shadow gripping her. Imparo screeched like fingernails on a sheet of slate and released her; Linkali landed back on her feet with a furious cry. Her muscles buzzed with energy at the small triumph, and for a brief moment, her tiredness was forgotten. When she heard Imparo's windy voice sneer another stream of threats at her, though, she seemed to remember how exhausting the fight thus far had been, and the sudden thrill of energy left her doubled over and gasping for air.

Imparo was on her in a flash, dealing the tired youth a sharp blow to the side of the head. Linkali was knocked off her feet and thudded down hard on her side, lying stunned for a few minutes. The corrupted Sage did not give her a chance to recover. She leapt like a furious panther and pounced firmly on the drum, her claw-tips bare inches away from Lin's face. The impact jarred the taut drum-skin with a low _thumm _and sent the girl flying upwards; Imparo was quick to divide into four and assault her in the air, attacking from back, front, and both sides. Linkali took the brutal beating with nothing more than a few smothered whimpers and flinches, almost too worn out to do anything else. Imparo and her clones drew back as one when the girl dropped back down onto the ground, landing on her hands and knees with a low moan of agony.

"_Are you finished yet?"_ the four asked, their eerily harmonizing voices dripping with caustic mock sympathy. _"Are you ready to die? We are having fun now, but soon enough, it will come time for this game to end. Soon enough, we will have our fill of your blood."_

Slowly, Linkali pushed herself off her hands and knelt on the drum. Her muscles were burning with fierce pain. A shaking, bleeding arm reached down and rested its hand on the surface of the drum. Lin used that arm to rise from her kneeling position to a low crouch.

"_You are tired; only we can give you the release that you desire,"_ Imparo and her clones whispered maliciously. _"We suppose we might be willing to end our game a little early…assuming you submit to us and admit defeat."_

The silent girl pushed off gingerly from her trembling hand and began the tedious, painful task of straightening herself up again. The shaking muscles in her legs cried out as Linkali began to put more of her weight on them, and her head spun with the effort. Her hard, quivering breathing was the only testament to how difficult it was for her to try to stand erect. She did not whimper, moan, or cry out. After what felt like hours of slowly easing herself upright, Lin stood before her four tormentors with her head lowered and her bloody shoulders drooping.

"_Get back down, stupid brat!"_ Imparo snapped. Her voices sounded less gloating now, perhaps even a little uncertain. _"Do you think we cannot hear how loudly your body cries in defeat? Your blood covers the head of this drum. Your skin is stuck between our claws."_

Linkali kept her head lowered and her mouth shut. A thin, weak smile pushed at the corner of her mouth tentatively; slowly her lips parted the barest of inches to reveal a small view of her teeth. She opened her eyes just barely. Her face was covered by blood-streaked strands of honey-brown hair, and though they were glazed with pain, a tiny glitter of triumph appeared in each eye. Imparo hissed furiously.

"_We see you grinning. There is nothing in this place that merits such a display of amusement,"_ the shadows spat. There was a definite edge of unease in their voices now, as if they were unsure of what to do now that their battered victim was smirking to herself. _"Stop it at once! Stop it! You have no reason to smile. You are wounded and tired—we have beaten you!"_

Blackness was seeping into the edges of Linkali's mind as the physical and mental strain of the battle weighed her down, and she was dizzy from all the magic use so far. If it hadn't meant a loss of hope for so many of her people, the young Hylian would have been tempted to lie down and die, or at least pass out. Only the knowledge that so much rested on her victory kept her struggling to stay on her feet. She drew in a shaky breath and released it in a long sigh, her smile never fading for an instant. Softly, speaking as loudly as she could manage, she murmured slowly, "You only think you've beaten me."

Imparo and her copies hissed in disbelief as Linkali slowly raised her lowered head and sheathed her sword at her hip. With trembling hands, she summoned the Lens of Truth into her grasp, and clutched it like a lifeline. She gave her head a small shake, scattering some of the hair that obscured her dark blue eyes. Both of them blazed with furious courage and stubborn anger, their intensity strangely outmatching the frailty of her smile. "Don't you understand, Imparo?" she whispered breathlessly, and her faint voice was also oddly incongruous with the fury in her gaze. "I'll never give up…Restoring the Master Sword—it's my quest, my goal. It's my _destiny!_"

The words, boldly spoken, seemed to catch the corrupted Shadow Sage completely off her guard. She and her three clones blinked in silent shock at the injured Hylian standing shakily in front of them. Lin gulped hard and continued in a slightly louder voice, "I won't give up; I will not be beaten. Nothing will stop me, not even you!" She tightened her grip on the Lens, swaying dizzily on her feet. "Now, come on! Stop playing around. I came here to fight—let's finish this!"

"_You are stupid. There will be no fight."_ Imparo sounded decidedly uncertain now; it seemed as if she were only saying those words in a feeble attempt to convince herself of them. _"We will destroy you, make you bleed, make you cry. You will die here, in the darkness, and we will consume you."_

"Let's see you try," Linkali muttered. Her frail smile took on a grim edge. She knew full well that her chances of success were slim to none. She was nearly out of magic power, and barely strong enough to stand up straight. What she was planning was reckless and stupid, and unlikely to work; she would need speed that her tired body just didn't have. About the only thing she _did_ have was the guts and determination to taunt the dark creature. "Or are you afraid of me?"

"_We fear nothing! We are the ones who are feared!"_ Imparo shrilled. The four clones bared their claws and flew at Linkali simultaneously. The young woman clenched her teeth and brought the Lens of Truth up to her eye. Her heart was racing in her chest as her gaze swept over the foursome as quickly as she could, before her meager reserves of magic could be depleted. There—second from the left! The only shadow-woman who did not disappear.

Lin banished the artifact with quaking hands, and—rather than draw her sword to strike—cycled them around again. A smooth, cool weight dropped into her palm, and she closed her fingers tightly around it. Imparo was streaking towards her like a black arrow, her ember-red eyes burning with hatred. The three clones lagged somewhat behind; one by one, they dove into Imparo's back and rejoined their controller's body. Linkali pressed the object in her hand against her palm nervously, her heart thudding against her ribs, her whole body cold with anticipation. She transferred the item into the grip of her thumb and first two fingers.

Imparo was diving at her, fangs bared, claws extended to tear flesh. _Help me! Let this work!_ Lin prayed, too distracted to direct her petition to any particular Goddess. Her mind was steadily filling with an ebbing, pulsing darkness, and she knew she only had a narrow window of opportunity in which her plan would succeed. She needed a swift arm and an accurate hand, neither of which she felt she had to count on.

The corrupted Sage seemed to be flying a little slower than before. Whether she was toying with her opponent or finally beginning to feel pain from her two injuries, Linkali had no idea. Whatever the cause, the result was in the wounded girl's favor. When Imparo slashed down with her clawed hands, Lin threw up her left arm, offering it to the creature like a falconer might offer their bird a perch. Imparo's talons latched eagerly onto the girl's arm, wrapping tightly around it and pulling back sharply. Linkali forced away the blackness that threatened to cover her at the new pain—for it almost felt as if her opponent were trying to snap her forearm bones _and_ wrench her shoulder from its socket at the same time—and instead focused her attention on the object pressed between her fingertips.

While Imparo was distracted with Lin's left arm, the girl thrust up with her right hand and slapped the Shadow Medallion against the creature's chest, holding it there doggedly until it dissolved and was absorbed.

Imparo released her grip on Linkali's arm with an ear-shattering screech, the pitch of which could probably have broken a plate-glass window. She dropped from the air as white light exploded from her black body. The flare was blinding, but brief, and almost instantaneous; Impa opened her scarlet eyes and looked gratefully down at Linkali just in time to gasp and catch the girl as she collapsed limply against the unsealed Sage of Shadow. Navi darted around the youth's head fearfully, calling her name in a voice high-pitched with worry.

Impa stared at the wounded Hylian, her eyes widening slightly with disbelief, as if she could not imagine that _she_ had done such heavy damage. Swiftly, she regained control of herself and wrapped her arm gently around Linkali's bleeding shoulders. She reached down and hooked her other arm under Lin's knees, then lifted the girl into her grasp.

"Get her to Ruto!" Navi pleaded, settling down on the Sheikah's shoulder. Impa nodded briskly, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. Light began to glow beneath her feet, and seconds later, Sage and warrior and fairy had vanished from head of the blood-spattered drum.

* * *

Linkali had not lost consciousness.

Though her body throbbed with pain and her mind was nearly dark, she was still very much aware of the world around her. She could feel the gentle grip of the Sage who cradled her aching body close, could hear the whooshing as they left the Shadow Temple far behind; foggily, she convinced herself that she was safe, despite the nearly-maddening agony that wracked her. She did not know the face of the one who held her, but she placed all her hazy trust in their strong arms.

Lin felt herself jarred slightly as Impa's feet touched down on the grass of the Sacred Realm. Her eyes were narrowed, barely open and unable to see much past the torn, bloodstained fabric of her mantle.

"Lin! Lin!" Saria's small Kokiri boots padded over the ground swiftly, carrying her to Impa's side. She stood there, head tipped back, eyes wide with fear for the battered Hylian in Impa's arms. Darunia walked up behind the Forest Sage, his large eyes dark with worry.

"Oh, no…" he murmured, his voice like a tumble of smooth stones.

"Guess I know what _I'll_ be doing with the rest of my evening," Ruto commented dryly, coming up behind the muscular Goron. She frowned; though her words were sardonic enough, her worry was just as genuine as the others'. She pointed to a nearby stretch of flat, grassy ground."Set her down over there. I need to wet my gills before I can do anything else."** (3)**

Impa nodded silently and carried the young woman over to the aforementioned spot. Once there, she got down on one knee and laid Linkali down gently on the grass. Saria scurried over and sat down, taking Lin's head tenderly into her lap. She stroked the girl's face lightly, brushing her fingers over the half-open eyes to close them. (Linkali was too tired and weak to open them again.) "It looks bad," Saria told the Shadow Sage crouching beside her, "but she's safe now. Don't worry."

Impa nodded silently. Though her face was carefully neutral, her mask of calm had a few cracks in it, and anyone who looked closely enough would see that she was deeply disturbed by the sight of the ragged young Hylian—and by the knowledge that _she_ had inflicted such brutal injuries. She pushed herself up from the ground and stepped away as Ruto approached, water dripping down from the sides of her neck. The Zora glanced up and down the prone youth's body, frowning and shaking her head. "What a mess," she muttered darkly; Impa winced slightly and looked away. The Sage of Water closed her eyes and placed her hands on Linkali's chest.

Lin flinched weakly, though not because the Zora had rested her webbed hands on tender wounds. She recognized the cool, damp touch of Ruto's hands, and though it was gentle and soothing, she remembered the pain that followed it. She didn't want to endure the fiery bite as the wound was sealed off; she'd already had to deal with enough agony from the battle. The youth shifted slightly, an uncomfortable moan losing its way somewhere in her throat. The pain had not yet struck her, but Linkali knew that it was only a matter of time before it did. Ruto's hands were cool and sleek, tender in their touch—but knowing that the sharp burst of pain was still to come made Lin unable to enjoy the soothing gentleness. The anticipation was almost worse than the actual sensation would be. Her heart thudded harder against the walls of her chest nervously, and she writhed feebly in an unsuccessful attempt to get away before the pain of healing struck. Her shallow breathing picked up in tempo, her heart rate spiked; every muscle tensed in anticipation of the feared pain.

And then it hit her.

Linkali felt as if the front of her body had been sliced with a white-hot knife, and the sheer agony of it drove every thought from her mind. She became a creature of fear and instincts, acting blindly in an attempt to escape pain. A breathless shout ripped out of her; adrenaline flooded her muscles, and the battered girl began to thrash wildly. She had been unbearably weakened before, but now that her body feared for its life, she was able to draw on her hidden reserves of strength. Lin used these reserves to struggle to a sitting position, gasping for breath and shaking. Her eyes were dark with panic, and wider than they had ever been before.

Ruto stumbled back, jaw dropping open. "She was still _awake?!_" the Zora Sage blurted out disbelievingly. She clapped a web-fingered hand over the lower half of her face as Linkali began shoving herself off the ground. "Oh, merciful Jabu-Jabu…I never would have…if I'd thought she was…" She shook her head briskly, locking eyes with Darunia. "Hold her down," she ordered. "She'll only hurt herself if she starts moving around like this!"

The huge Goron nodded. Firmly, but also very gently, he wrapped his thick hands around the youth's upper arms and pressed her back against the ground. Linkali thrashed harder; mindless in her agonized panic, she struggled against the grasp of a creature hundreds of times her own strength. Her heavy, ragged breathing was edged with a pained sob. Ruto sighed, clenching her teeth in frustration. "Impa, stop moping," she commanded, though the Sheikah was not so much 'moping' as drawing back with an expression of self-loathing. "I need you to get over here and knock her out—it's not good for her to be awake right now, not with all this."

Impa hesitated. "I do not wish to hurt her further," she murmured. Ruto rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, you'd be doing her and everyone else here a favor," she retorted, raising her voice over Lin's breathless yells. "Her mind can't handle any further pain right now. Besides, you wouldn't hurt her. Just reach inside her head and flick a few switches, as it were—I know you can do _that_ much."

"Impa, please, I'm scared!" Saria pleaded, her young voice high-pitched with fear. When Linkali had started to struggle, the Kokiri girl had leaped backwards in surprise, and was now standing by with her arms drawn up against her chest defensively. She eyed the writhing Hylian with worry and sadness. A single, frightened tear slipped down from her eyes at the sight.

Impa sighed, nodding once. Though she did not relish the idea of laying hands—however well-intentioned—on the young woman she had so brutally mauled in her corrupted state, she accepted that it was the only choice. She knelt down beside the young woman's head and cupped the palm of her hand against Lin's cheek. She closed her red eyes in concentration, and Linkali's struggles began to quiet. She blinked up at the Sage of Shadow; her blue eyes were still crowded with raw panic and fear, but glassiness was beginning to steal over them. Impa was silent as she focused—she was, as Ruto had put it "flicking a few switches" to slowly bring the young Hylian down to a calmer state of mind and ease her shock. After a few moments, her entire body gave a small jolt, as if recoiling from a soft blow she'd been dealt. Linkali's body responded in like, and she gave a small gasp; her eyes widened briefly, then shut, and every muscle relaxed in a swift droop. Her fear-blank mind was filled with a calm and painless black.

* * *

Ruto heaved a sigh of relief. "Perfect," she breathed. "Thank you, Impa."

The Sheikah did not respond; she had already pushed herself to her feet and was striding stiffly away. Darunia rocked back on his heels and watched her leave, frowning slightly. When Saria took a few steps after her, he held the young Sage back and shook his head slowly. Ruto clapped her hands together softly and rubbed them together.

"Let her be, kid," the finned woman said. "We've got more important things to do right now."

"You're such a pragmatist, Ruto," Saria replied, dropping back down to the ground beside Linkali.

"Not so much that," Ruto told her. "It's more like I don't think it would be a good thing if the Master Sword's next heir bled to death with two competent healers standing by and watching." She eyed the battered Hylian with sad sympathy. "Oof. Well, we all knew that Impa was going to be the hardest one of us for her to unseal, and the most ruthless in combat…but I don't think I expected damage of _quite_ this magnitude." She glanced at the little Sage of Forest. "Still, it's nothing we can't handle, right, kid?"

"Right!" Saria grinned eagerly, clapped her hands together once, and wiggled her fingers. "Tell me what to do!"

Though he knew that his help was not needed, Darunia remained with Saria and Ruto in order to give Impa the distance and solitude he knew she desired. From time to time, he would sneak glances in the direction she had taken, brow furrowing with thought. The Sage of Fire he might be, but Darunia was also a Goron; his heart went deeper than the earth and was warmer than the Death Mountain Crater itself. It bothered him to see someone he cared for so distraught—for though Impa's face and voice had been, as they always were, the epitome of neutrality, he knew that she was troubled. Matters were not improved by the fact that she did not seem to want anyone's comfort. Still, he would not impose. There was much on her mind, and he would leave her to sort through it undisturbed. _For the moment, at least,_ he added privately.

Navi drifted down and landed on the big Goron's shoulder. "It was a terrible battle," she whispered, looking at Lin. "There were parts where I wasn't sure she would make it out of there alive." Darunia glanced at the fairy briefly before turning his attention to her injured partner.

"You should have more confidence in her," he murmured. "It is clear that she is not as strong physically as Link was—her arrows do not fly as far, and she must constantly summon and banish the Megaton Hammer because she is unable to carry it from spot to spot—but there is something different about her." He rested his chin against the top of a fist and peered at the young woman. "She is far more stubborn than _he_ ever was, and tends more towards recklessness; when her heart is racing and her blood is hot, she thinks with much less care than Link ever did and acts on impulse."

"You've been watching?" Navi asked. The Sage of Fire nodded.

"Yes. We all have—with great interest." Darunia smirked. "Her methods are also…unorthodox, but effective, nonetheless. Giving Saria her Medallion as a gift, smacking me into the ground with the Goron hero's weapon and chipping away my armor to reveal a place to return my Medallion—"

"Throwing my Medallion at my _face_," Ruto cut in. She chuckled softly. "A crude and almost brutish method—but it certainly worked." She lifted Linkali's left arm into her hands, running a finger lightly over the steadily-blushing bruises that peeked through rips in her bloodstained shirt—bruises left from the corrupted Sage of Shadow's grip at the end of the fight. She frowned. "Saria, tell me I'm not imagining a hairline fracture here."

"The bone was broken?" Darunia asked, unable to keep himself from butting into the two healers' conversation.

"Bone_s_—there's two in this part of the arm," Saria informed him, leaning over and sliding her fingers over the older girl's forearm gently. "And a hairline fracture just means the bone was cracked; it's not a serious break." To Ruto, she added, "You're right. It's minor enough, though. It'll probably heal just fine on its own."

"True, but it would be unbearable until it did," the Zora Sage replied. "Besides, she needs this arm more than the other one. It should be simple enough to fix."

"If you need any of my power…" Darunia began.

"I'll use it. Thank you for the offer."

"Speaking of power," Saria piped up, "it's good to have Impa back. She's just as strong as you are, Darunia. With her help, we'll be able to take the Sacred Realm even _closer_ to looking the way it used to look…you know, _before_ all those years passed."

"If she ever stops feeling sorry for herself and actually helps us," Ruto sniffed, rolling her eyes scathingly. "The way she's acting, you would almost believe that she's the only one who ever hurt Lin. Is she completely unaware of the things that the rest of us did before our seals were broken?"

"She might be," Darunia pointed out mildly. "It was something I planned to discuss with her later on—you saw, just as I saw, how shaken she is by this." He gestured loosely at Linkali. The Hylian youth was looking better than she had when Impa had carried her over, though it was clearly going to take more work before she was completely restored. "Especially when we realized that she had not completely lost consciousness."

Ruto nodded in grudging agreement as she settled Lin's left arm loosely over her belly, brushing her fingers over the torn and bloodstained sleeve of her shirt to restore it to its former appearance. "I'm not saying that it's wrong of her to feel some discomfort at the realization of who she had hurt," the Zora said. "But she needs to understand that she's not alone in what she's done—and that Lin is a very rare sort of person in this circumstance."

"I know," Darunia replied. "And I will speak with her about this later. I'm sure the two of you will want to rest after you've finished seeing to her wounds." He watched the two Sages nod their agreement and settled back on his hands to wait.

* * *

Impa was leaning against a spur of red-brown rock when Darunia found her, arms crossed in front of her, chin resting on her chest. Her scarlet eyes were focused on the ground in front of her, though they snapped briefly to the side as the huge Goron approached. She'd had enough time by now—at least an hour, if not more—to get her emotions back under her control again; there were no visible cracks in her cold mask of calm, no matter how hard one peered; she appeared totally collected. Darunia, however, was not fooled. He knew perfectly well that his fellow Sage was still just as disturbed as when he'd last spoken to her.

"Impa," he began as he stood behind the spur of stone, "I thought you might like to know that Ruto and Saria have finished their work. Lin's wounds are healed, and she is resting easier now. She will recover nicely."

"That is good to know," Impa replied stonily.

Darunia leaned around the side of the rock, a smile on his face. The Sheikah regarded him briefly before turning her face away from his and gazing off into the distance. "Perhaps you did not _hear_ me, Sage of Shadow: She _will_ recover."

"And she will hate me." Impa pushed herself away from the rock formation stiffly. She turned over her shoulder and gave Darunia a rather pointed scowl. The jovial Sage was undeterred; beneath his teasing demeanor, he was actually quite serious and intent on making a point to the tall woman.

"Hate you?" he echoed, still not letting up on his friendly air. "You truly think Linkali will hate you?"

"For all but killing her, yes."

"May I remind you that we are currently discussing an heir of the Master Sword—a sacred weapon which has, in the past, chosen only wielders with the purest of hearts, minds, and intentions?" Darunia crossed his arms over his chest, a bit more seriousness creeping into his demeanor. "Impa, wouldn't you think that makes her a bit unlikely to carry a grudge?"

"Considering half of the things I did to her—"

"Would you also like to consider the number of times _I_ threw her against a solid stone wall—mercilessly and without remorse?" Impa balked, although with her Sheikah grace, the motion looked completely planned and intentional. She turned to face Darunia. It was the Fire Sage's turn to wear the neutral mask. When he saw that he had her attention, he continued in a level voice, "Or perhaps the number of days and hours _Ruto_ had her in the Ice Caverns? Impa, I sincerely hope you did not think that you were the only one who has ever done this girl harm."

"Yours were one-time affairs," the pale Sage said at length. "Whatever harm you caused her, you only did so once. Twice, she faced me in battle, and twice I nearly destroyed her. The first time, she was able to warp here to have her wounds treated; the second, she had to be _carried_ in!"

"Impa—"

"I wanted to _kill_ her," the Sheikah burst out, cutting Darunia off. She covered her face with a hand. "When I was still corrupted, I wanted to kill her—and I very nearly succeeded!"

"But you did not succeed. She is still alive, and will be fine after some rest." Darunia laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. Impa looked up with a sigh. "I know that you are ashamed of what happened, but I find it difficult to believe that Lin will condemn you for it; she is not the type to hold a grudge against another, especially not one of us. Considering the Hyrule in which she grew up—a land of suspicion and secretiveness—she has a rare and unusual amount of forgiveness in her heart."

Impa looked to the side.

"If you remain unconvinced, then perhaps you should speak with her when she awakens," Darunia said in closing, and he left it at that. He had made his points clear, and was not about to belabor them; Impa was competent enough that he did not need to repeat himself. He offered the Sheikah a comforting smile, then turned and walked away, leaving her staring pensively after him.

* * *

Linkali felt herself slowly come awake, her rested mind returning calmly to her body. Her dark eyes flicked open and blinked a few times at the blue-gray sky over the Sacred Realm. Gradually, she pushed herself off the grass into a sitting position, tensing her back and shoulders experimentally. She was sore—an aftereffect of her Sage friends' healing powers—but otherwise felt perfectly fine. After ascertaining that none of her injuries had resulted in the loss of limbs or digits, she turned to look at the pale Sheikah whose face had been floating in her peripheral vision since she had first opened her eyes. She smiled at the Sage.

"Hello," she said simply. "You've probably heard it already from everyone else, but I'm Lin." Impa nodded. "You must be the Shadow Sage—Impa, right?"

"Yes." The woman nodded. Linkali grinned.

"Back in the Shadow Temple—that was some fight!" she declared. "You really had me on my toes for that one. I've never had an opponent that fast or strong before in my life; I couldn't believe how powerful you were."

"I want to apologize to you for that battle," Impa said softly. Some of the excitement died from Lin's eyes. The Sage of Shadow looked to the side with a sigh. "And for the harm I inflicted upon you. I put your life—and all hope for Hyrule—in jeopardy with my actions, and I am truly sorry for what I have done."

"And I accept your apology…though I find it completely unnecessary." Impa turned back to Linkali. The young Hylian was still smiling, and had one eyebrow raised in a way that was almost mischievous. She laughed softly. "Impa, I won't blame you for what happened in the Shadow Temple—I can't. You weren't yourself; you had already sealed away the knowledge that you were a Sage, and Ganon's dark power corrupted you when you were unprotected. If you had known who you were and who I was, perhaps things would have gone differently…but you didn't at the time, and now such things are past."

"You are eager to forgive," the Sheikah murmured, "even though I very nearly killed you."

"Ah! But you _didn't_ kill me." Linkali smirked, raising a finger in a matter-of-fact gesture. "And that's the important thing. Besides, it isn't as if I'm a stranger to being thrown around and beaten down." Her expression turned a bit less playful, and some of the amused light faded from her eyes; a solid seriousness settled in her gaze, though she still continued to smile slightly. "If anything, I should be thanking you for thrashing me so mercilessly. No offense, but I'm sure that compared to the Evil King, you're a pushover."

Impa huffed out a soft breath of air at that statement. It could have been a laugh or a scoff; Linkali wasn't sure, and Impa would never tell. As the weight of her next words descended on her, Lin frowned lightly, and the corners of her smile straightened out. "I will need to be much stronger if I want to have any chance of taking on Ganon and freeing Hyrule," she said, "and getting knocked around is just another way to achieve that goal. It shows me that I'm not as strong as I think I am, and that I still need to work harder before I can face him and expect to have any measure of success." Her mouth curved up just a bit, though her pensive frown remained, giving her a very determined expression. "So I want to thank you for those battles, Impa, and for showing me that I still have more training ahead of me."

"Lin," Navi murmured, settling down on the girl's shoulder gently. Linkali gave a curious _Hn?_ "I think this is the first time I've heard you say that you actually _want_ to follow through to the end and take on Ganon."

"It is," Lin replied, pausing as she noticed the look of surprise on her fairy friend's face. She grinned. "Navi, I'm not made of stone; I can change." She took a deep breath, releasing it in a swift sigh. "No…I know it's a bit of a change of heart. When this whole thing started, I didn't want to go through to the final battle—I wanted someone else to take my place for that."

"What brought about the change?" Impa asked. Lin chuckled softly.

"It sounds sweet enough to make you sick," she muttered, "but…the people I love gave me new inspiration. It was the time I spent back in my village of Kokoria that convinced me I needed to fight. In between our two battles, I rested back at home and spent time with the people I love. I guess I had gotten so used to being out on my own and standing up to threats rather than hiding from them that being back with people who _were_ afraid came as a nasty shock." She shook her head wonderingly. "Hylians under King Ganon are oppressed—fear of our ruler's anger keeps us humble and obedient. When I went back home and saw just how deeply everyone feared him, I realized that I had the ability to put an end to this whole mess and I knew I only had one choice: I had to fight."

A warm glow of respect lit up Impa's red eyes at those words, and her lips curled up in a rare smile. Linkali returned the grin. "I had to fight," she repeated, determination strengthening her voice. "I had to take a chance to win freedom for the people I love. Maybe it's a fool's venture—but maybe it's something that _can_ be done. I'll only know if I continue the fight, and that's what I plan to do."

"I find that very honorable of you," the Shadow Sage told her. "And I am sure that Link, wherever he is now, is proud to share a spirit with someone as fiercely determined and persistent as you."

Linkali managed—though it was difficult—to hold down a flinch at the Sage's words. She turned her eyes to the side, feigning humility and hiding shame. She closed her dark blue eyes lightly as a further precaution against revealing her emotions. After a brief moment, though, she opened them again and offered Impa a smile. There was nothing in her gaze but gratitude and the burning, raw courage that the Goddess Farore gave to her chosen. "Don't praise me yet, Impa," she said, a bit cheekily. "I still have a lot of work left to do." And with that, she reached for the pouch at her side and drew forth the remaining two Medallions. She held them out to Impa.

The Sheikah Sage did not hesitate; she seemed to know exactly what was asked of her without any need for explanation. Her pale hand reached out smoothly and plucked the orange Medallion from Linkali's palm. She held it between her thumb and forefingers, closing her eyes lightly while Lin dropped the remaining object back into its pouch for safekeeping. When the girl was ready, she handed it off. "You will find Nabooru, the Sage of Spirit, among her people, the Gerudo," she said as the young Hylian rubbed the coin-like Medallion to familiarize herself with its raised surface. "From what I have seen of you in our time together thus far, you and she will have much in common with each other."

* * *

About an hour later, Linkali found herself standing in Hyrule Field, not far from the entrance of Kokoria Village. Navi bobbed beside her, casting a pale blue glow in the deepening twilight. "Gerudo Valley is about as far away from my village as the Kirikiri Forest is," Lin told her, "and I was able to get there, clear the Temple, and return home all in a day. I don't know how hard it will be to find the Sage of Spirit and return her Medallion, but at least we know the journey will be relatively easy."

"When will we leave?" the fairy asked. Linkali smiled to herself.

"A few days," she replied. "I want to see if Zelda has any information about the Gerudo." Navi nodded and zipped down to hide in the wide collar of the girl's mantle. Lin glanced around the Field briefly before starting towards the entrance of her home village.

**(1) To be fair, the only reason she can even use magic in the first place is because she carries the Triforce of Courage; magic use goes against her basic nature as a Hylian under Ganon's rule, so her body tries to rebel against the power of the Triforce piece, limiting her magic power. Sorry, Lin! **

**(2) Originally, this was going to be the only time Linkali had to use the Lens of Truth in the battle.**

**(3) Zoras have gills, right? I imagine they're somewhat like crabs, wherein they have gills and lungs, but need to soak the gills every so often to stay happy.**

**Also, "Merciful Jabu-Jabu" seems like a swear a Zora would use. I mean, he is their god, isn't he?**


	20. 19: Trial by Sand

**Guess who's back? Yes, after smashing my way through finals, a job search, and writer's block, I am back writing for ASoC. Sorry it took so long to get back in the saddle; hopefully this chapter is worth the wait!  
-Ruthie**

Linkali stayed home for four days after breaking Impa's seal, taking to heart the advice of Zelda and the other Sages. Though she still felt it was a little strange for someone who carried a piece of the Triforce to need contact with their loved ones so desperately, she didn't see any way to change it. She did not know how long she would be away in search of the Sage of Spirit, but she figured that it could only help her to spend more time with the people in her village. Hillboarding and stargazing with Bartal, hikes and games with Talina, an afternoon of planning with Zelda before she decided to leave were all in order. It felt wonderful—just as it always had—to be home again after being away from Kokoria; however, after those few days, the Hylian youth was again pricked with the urge to continue exploring and questing. (After all, it still made her sick at heart to see how repressed and fear-plagued her people were, and the knowledge that she could reverse that made her all the more eager to set out again.)

The morning Lin left Kokoria Village dawned relatively clear and cool, with the night's clouds huddled in the western horizon and the first fringes of color appearing to the gray east. Hyrule Field was silent, save for the burring of hidden crickets in the grass and the rare caw of a Guay separated from its flock. At one point, when she had just stepped out of Kokoria Village, Linkali swore she saw the shadow of a massive owl take flight and head towards Zora's River, but it was too far away to be sure. Aside from those three things, though, the Field was practically empty, save for Lin and her fairy partner. The lean youth was glad for the feeling of solitude; it gave her much more room to turn things over in her mind without distraction.

"Lin, you seem bothered by something," Navi whispered at length, keeping her voice low in the quiet morning air. The young woman walking through the dewy grass beside her glanced briefly in her direction before looking forward again. "And don't tell me that it's nothing. I can see it in your eyes, you know—something's troubling you."

Linkali laughed softly under her breath. "If I had ten Rupees for every time someone said that to me…" she began quietly, grinning. After a brief moment, her smile faded out, becoming a horizontal line across her pale face, matching the worry in her eyes. She sighed; she wondered if Navi would grasp the implications of what was making her nervous this morning. Lin herself wasn't entirely sure of what it could mean, but whatever it was, she got the distinct feeling that it couldn't be good. "It's my parents," she murmured in a low voice; she spoke slowly, as if in the hopes that what she was about to say would make more sense to her as she said it. "Last night, I only told them I would be leaving the village again…and neither of them asked what I was leaving to _do_."

* * *

By the time the Hylian girl crossed over the bridge that spanned the thundering river, the sun was seated high overhead in the sky. Linkali had often heard tales that the Gerudo place was often much warmer and drier than the rest of Hyrule, owing to the fact that it lay closer to the edge of the Evil King's dominion and its climate was less under his control. The land around her _had_ been getting noticeably warmer as she'd gone closer and closer towards the Gerudo land, but Lin had dismissed it as being the product of the changing seasons. Now, though, she was beginning to reconsider that. She wasn't uncomfortable yet, but she was definitely starting to feel the heat.

The roaring whitewater of the falls filled her right ear with its steady rumble of sound; Lin swore she could feel some of its spray on her cheek, even where she stood at the far end of the bridge. She paused for a moment, awed by the sight of the furious, cascading water. She could even see the faint glitter of a rainbow that arced over the spray. The girl felt somewhat dwarfed by the mighty waterfall, and infinitely small as well. _Never see _that_ hanging around Kokoria,_ she thought proudly with a grin, gladdened—as she always was—at the impressive sights that her quest allowed her to see, sights that no one else in her village had ever gazed at before. She allowed herself a few more minutes of staring, then turned back around and stepped through the towering red-rock cliffs that awaited her. Navi bobbed loyally beside her.

The pair of Hylian and fairy navigated the narrow canyon in silence, save for the occasional fizzing and sparking of Navi's wings. Up ahead, though, there was the unmistakable sound of voices—there were, without a doubt, people ahead. Linkali glanced over at Navi before rounding the last curve in the gorge. She remembered reading, in the book that contained the Hero's story, how the Gerudo had arrested and imprisoned the young man on sight, and how he had been forced to sneak through the fortress in order to free the four captive carpenters. Lin was a woman—and with her long hair, slender body, and feminine face, there was really no chance for a case of mistaken identity; however, she couldn't help wondering what sort of stumbling blocks might lie ahead. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stepped out of the shaded canyon and into the sunlight.

The sight that met Linkali's eyes was one she would not have expected, not even when she considered all of the rare things she had seen since taking up the task of unsealing the Six Sages. The lean Hylian stepped out of the canyon and onto the edge of an open-air marketplace. The sheer unfamiliarity of it all took her quite by surprise, and for a few minutes, all she could do was stand and stare. Women walked through the market, tugging at the hands of their daughters while keeping one hand up to steady to jug of water balanced on their head. There were tents with groups of graceful urns outside them, racks of dried herbs whose looks and powerful aromas were utterly alien, glassworks and rich tapestries…for a girl who came from a poor goat-herding village in the far corner of Hyrule, it was almost overwhelming at first. All of it looked so exotic and rich that she couldn't bring herself to look away, not even to acknowledge Navi saying her name quietly.

And then she got a closer look.

Linkali had been raised on tales of the Gerudo thieves as being richly clothed, dressed in rare purples and silks; looking around the marketplace, she couldn't see anyone who remotely fit that description. The women walking between the stalls and tents were haggard and shabby-looking, with a hunted glint in their strange, golden eyes. Hair, both black and scarlet red, was dull and unkempt. When a pair of young girls playing a game of tag ran in front of the Hylian youth, Lin could see the dirt that smudged their thin faces, and the way their clothes seemed to belong on someone much bigger than they were. There were even a few girls who were only wearing a pair of baggy pants, or who weren't wearing anything at all—though they did not seem terribly ashamed to be walking around with their bronzed skin on display. Wiping the first few beads of sweat from her forehead, Linkali started walking, morbidly curious to see more.

As she walked through the passages between tents, Lin glanced around quickly, because she'd feel horribly guilty if she stared. Towards the end of the market, she walked past thin woman sitting on her rug. Her breasts were uncovered, although a small baby nursed at one of them. She eyed Linkali shrewdly as the girl passed by her stall; she seemed both desperate and horribly mistrusting all at once. The Hylian met her gaze calmly, though there was no hiding the surprise in her eyes at how gaunt the woman looked, and how shabby her cotton clothing was. The Gerudo woman's facial expression shifted to a flat-out scowl, and Lin hurried away, a little unsure of what she had done. Navi settled down on her shoulder. "Is this anything at all like you remember it being?" she whispered. The fairy shook her head.

"No…I don't understand it," Navi replied. "The Gerudo were a wealthy people when we visited them last; I would have thought that, since they are Ganon's own people, he would have taken care of them."

"And that's where you're wrong," a new voice informed her. Linkali and Navi both stiffened warily before the former turned slowly around to face the speaker. "You're not from around here—I can tell from the rich way you dress."

"I never thought I'd hear the day someone described my clothing as 'rich,' " Lin told her honestly, walking towards the speaker. "I'm from Kokoria Village—it's one of the poorer places in Hyrule."

The woman who had spoken to them had an indescribable air around her, an aura that Linkali couldn't really comprehend; it reminded her strongly of the vibe that Zelda gave off. Her brown face was heavily wrinkled and lined, so much that her sparkling golden eyes were nearly lost in the folds of flesh. Her thin, long hair was a variegated jumble of shades of gray and white, streaked through with occasional smears of a dull, washed-out red. She smiled at the young woman standing in front of her, and Lin saw that most of her teeth were missing and that those that remained were yellowed with age. The old Gerudo dressed in somewhat finer clothing than the others in the marketplace; her garments were not as coarse or shabby, and a ratty scarf of purple silk hung at her hip, like a mangled memory. Her rounded ears were pierced several times, though it seemed that age had stretched the holes so that her earrings hung nearly at the corner of her jaw.

"It's got to be wealthier than this place," the woman muttered, shoving aside a glass ball whose interior was filled with a strange, multicolored liquid—it almost looked like drops of dyed oil swimming in water. She patted the rug she was seated on. Linkali ducked under the crystals and dried flowers that were strung up in front of the old woman's tent, and sat down beside her. Navi sat on Lin's shoulder, her eyes fixed on the Gerudo. "There—make yourself comfortable, daughter." She paused, then smiled mysteriously at the confusion that flickered in Lin's blue eyes. "Allow me to explain: You see, among the Gerudo, every woman is your sister, daughter, or mother. That is how we speak." The girl nodded with understanding. "Now, tell me some things, daughter, if you would, and once my questions are answered I will answer yours. Tell me…Is there not something unusual about you? For I sense something different in the way you hold your head and walk—I sense a warrior's spirit, and courage like a Goddess."

Linkali drew in her breath somewhat sharply. "H—…How did you know that?" she whispered. The old Gerudo lifted an eyebrow.

"I will answer your questions when you have answered mine," she responded. There was no terseness in her voice, only serene patience. "It is true, then? There is something…different about you?"

"Y—yes," Lin stammered. She hesitated, glancing swiftly over both shoulders before leaning in closer. "What you sense is…true. But…I don't want to go into detail out in the open air. It's something best said in a more private place."

"Your sisters here will not eavesdrop, not while you are with a fortune-teller," the elder told her. "But you do not need to tell me everything; you confirmed what I sensed as truth, and that is all I asked." Lin relaxed slightly. "Now, my next question is this: Are you searching for someone?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a Gerudo named Nabooru—or something similar in sound to that." She added the last part when she thought of a majority of the Sages whose seals she had already broken. When corrupted, Saria had been called Sri, Darunia called Darrun, and Impa called Imparo. She wasn't sure if the Sage of Spirit could have turned into a monster like they had—considering the fact that those Sages' very _races _had also changed form—but it didn't hurt to try and cover all her bases.

The old woman's eyes glittered. "Ah, Nabooru," she wheezed softly. "I know that name well. It is well-known where she can be found. I hope you will indulge me for a bit, daughter, as I tell you a small piece of the Gerudo's past." Lin nodded, motioning for the fortune-teller to continue. "I know that you and your fairy guide are familiar with Hyrule's state in the days when a certain young man was still alive."

"The Hero of Time," Navi whispered. The Gerudo nodded.

"Yes, the Hero of Time. You know about the Hyule in which he lived, and know that in those days, the Gerudo were truly a race to be feared. We were thieves, the lot of us, ruthless and relentless in our pursuits, but also tender and passionate lovers. But much of that changed in the years following the Hero's defeat." She paused. "You see, even though Ganondorf was our King and we paid him appropriate homage, he ignored us after he had slain the Hero of Time. I suppose he had all of Hyrule under his thumb at that point, and we were as nothing to him. It may also be that he held a grudge against his adoptive mothers, the witches Twinrova, after the young Hero defeated them so effortlessly. Whatever the reason, we the Gerudo fell out of favor with him, and he abandoned us completely, leaving us to wither in the desert sun."

The old Gerudo closed her eyes and tilted her head back. "Times grew even more desperate when his darkness spread over the land and people stopped leaving their villages," she continued. "Much of our prosperity came from our trades; I do not doubt that you've seen some of the things our craftswomen can produce." Linkali nodded, recalling the beautiful glass pieces and pottery she had seen walking through the marketplace. "We had no one to trade with except for ourselves. With such an integral part of our way of life missing, we plunged into poverty." One tendon-strung hand held out the ragged purple scarf to the girl. "Trinkets like this are hard to find nowadays, and they are as worthless as they are tattered." She shook her head. "We as a people had grown so accustomed to our lavish way of life that we were simply unprepared and unable to live any other way. We…lost touch with our old ways, our old codes of honor and conduct, our old traditions."

"That's so sad," Linkali whispered as the woman trailed off into silence. Her dark blue eyes reflected her sorrow quite clearly. _Imagine if something had happened to our flock, and we lost that part of our life,_ she thought, thinking of Kokoria. _We'd get by, but so much of the money in our village comes from those goats…and they're such a defining part of who we are. _How many times had Kokoria's visitors commented on the goat herd? They said you could tell when a Kokorian was walking towards you—you could smell the goats on them. There wasn't an able-bodied youth in the village who couldn't turn aside a charging ram with ease, or butt heads with a playful kid without sustaining injuries from horn nubs. Without their goats, Kokorians would blend into all other villagers; they wouldn't be nearly as strong of will (for it took a stubborn person to mind goats), or even body. The mere thought of losing the goat flock truly saddened the girl, and she felt as if she understood what it must have been like for the thieves to lose their old ways.

The Gerudo fortune-teller patted her thigh consolingly. "But we have not completely forgotten who we were," she said softly, her yellow eyes sparking with mischief. "There is a Gerudo among us who remembers how we were before Ganondorf ruled all of Hyrule, for she remembers the days before his reign. That woman is Nabooru herself, the very one you seek, daughter. Nabooru seeks to keep the old Gerudo ways alive and strong; she takes in the children of those women who want their daughters to be raised under the old rules and trained in the old arts, to be _true_ Gerudo."

"Where can I find her?" Lin asked. She balked. "That is, unless you had more questions for me to answer. I know you said—"

"Peace, daughter," the woman murmured gently, taking one of the girl's hands in both of her own. "I only wished to know _who_ you were searching for, so that I might have aided you in your search. I have asked all that I must ask. Now you may ask your own questions of me."

"Where can I find Nabooru?" Linkali repeated, excitement flaring up in her eyes. The old Gerudo smiled and raised her arm to point the way.

"Out in that direction you will find a gate that is locked and guarded," she replied. "However, if you merely speak to the guard and ask her permission, she will open it for you. That gate leads out into the Haunted Wasteland, a fearsome place where body, mind, and spirit are all tested. You will need great courage, and cunning, and eyes that can see past glamours and illusions if you wish to have a prayer of surviving. Upon making it through the wasteland, you will come across the Desert Colossus and the Spirit Temple, and that is where you will find the last of the true Gerudo, with Nabooru among them."

"Thank you," the Hylian said sincerely, wholly glad she had stopped and spoken to the old fortune-teller. She paused, then reached into one of her belt pouches and pulled out a few red Rupees. The woman shook her head and waved it away.

"I seek no payment for advising you," she grumbled stubbornly. "You will need that money far more than I; you still have to purchase supplies for your journey through the wasteland." She paused thoughtfully. "Prepare for three days' travel, and if it comes to it, always choose water over food. You will survive longer without something to eat than you will without something to drink. _You_ especially must be careful with your thirst, for the desert sun will rob _you_ of your fluids faster than it will anyone else in this marketplace—you simply aren't used to it. Be careful, stay safe, and remember that few things in the Haunted Wasteland are as they appear."

_Just like the Shadow Temple,_ Lin thought as she again thanked the woman. In the back of her mind, she envisioned the Lens of Truth. It was going to be a pain to have to use her limited supply of magic, but the youth was prepared to do whatever it took to make it to the Colossus and find Nabooru. There was no question of what needed to be done; she had promised Zelda that she would break the Sages' seals and get their help in restoring the Master Sword. It was her only goal now, and she was not about to let anything stand in her way.

* * *

"Navi—Navi, stay close!" Linkali pleaded, holding her mantle up against her mouth to keep the swirling sand out. "I don't want to lose you." If the fairy replied, Lin did not hear her, but she felt a small weight descend on her shoulder and a hot cheek press against her neck. The driving sandstorm winds howled and moaned eerily around the two travelers, blowing stinging grit into the Hylian's eyes. One hand gripped the handle of the Lens of Truth, which she had summoned shortly after entering the wasteland; she had looked through it from time to time over the course of the last hour they'd spent here, but so far everything seemed to be what it appeared.

"We should be coming up to the first trial soon, although I'm not sure how you'll fare," the fairy told her. "It's the River of Sand—you won't be able to walk across it without the Hover Boots. Maybe we should turn back."

Linkali frowned. "We'd need to go back to the Shadow Temple for those, wouldn't we?" she asked.

"Well, yes…"

"Navi, I'm giving that place as wide a berth as I can for now. I know that the biggest threat there has gone now, but still, I—I don't like it there." It hadn't just been Imparo that had made Lin uneasy; it was also the echoes of moans and distant shrieks, the bloodstained walls, and the unsettling smell of decaying flesh. "Before we head back there, why don't we see how far we can get here?" She heard a rather noncommittal grumble from her fairy partner, and knew that Navi disliked how stubborn she was being. Still—Triforce of Courage or not, the Shadow Temple was a place Linkali planned to avoid for the rest of her life. The two visits she had taken to that place had been _more_ than enough.

Just as Navi predicted, it wasn't long before Lin saw something up ahead through the whirling sheets of sand. She felt the fairy shift beneath her mantle, where she had taken shelter form the sandstorm, and a few seconds later, Navi's blue head popped up over the collar. She nodded. "Yes, that's it," she confirmed. "Lin, I really think we need the Hover Boots to get past this…"

Linkali eyed the situation before her with a calculating gleam in her eyes. After a moment, she shook her head. "No, we don't," she replied calmly. Cycling her hands around each other, the Hylian girl banished the Lens of Truth and summoned another item. The Hookshot dropped into her waiting hands, and she walked carefully to the edge of the valley cut in the sand. In a practiced motion, she torqued the handle to arm the chain, and took aim at one of the wooden crates on the other side. It was going to be a bit of a stretch, and Linkali wasn't totally sure that the Hookshot's chain was even long enough—but it was worth a try. She grabbed the barrel of the old weapon and jammed it down sharply against the handle, releasing it swiftly before the rapidly-unwinding chain could snag her fingers in its cold links. She held her breath until she heard the characteristic _thud_ of the point of the hook burying itself in a target, then released her air in a wild yell as the rewinding chain pulled her swiftly through the air and over the River of Sand.

Lin landed in a graceless heap on the other side, slightly dazed after slamming her head against the wooden crate. Navi darted over her worriedly, but it wasn't more than a few moments before the Hylian sat up and shook her head. Fortunately, years of getting smacked around in reckless sports had toughened her; though not nearly as resilient as her friend Bartal, Linkali was certainly more resistant to head trauma than most.

"Darunia was right," the fairy muttered, her small voice nearly lost in the chorus of the moaning desert winds. "You really are stubborn—almost to a fault." It was clear that she hadn't expected the stunt with the Hookshot, but she seemed to know full-well that Linkali had only done it to avoid going back to the Shadow Temple.

"Darunia said that?" Lin asked. "When? I don't remember it."

"It was when you were…recovering after your fight with Imparo," the fairy replied. Linkali balked, frowning slightly.

"…Do you often talk about me while I'm incapacitated?" she asked at length. Sensing a burst of defensiveness from her small partner, she added, "Don't worry. I'm about as angry at you as I am injured from this most recent collision, which is to say not at all." She pushed herself up from the shifting sands, brushing the grit off of her shirt and leggings. "Come on…let's keep moving. Which way do you think we should try first?"

"Straight ahead—and follow the flags," Navi told her. Linkali nodded in agreement, pausing only to exchange the Hookshot for the Lens of Truth with a spin of her hands. Practice had given her the ability to swap items at the same time, rather than having to banish one, pause, and summon the other. Lin was fairly sure it took more magic power to do, but not so much more that she felt drained afterwards. At any rate, she was sure she was building up her proficiency steadily, so she likely had more magic to deal out than when she'd first started. Either way, she didn't want to have to use the Lens unless it was absolutely necessary. Gripping the artifact tightly in one hand, Linkali started off through the swirling, wailing sands.

* * *

Eight days later, the Hylian youth found herself walking—or rather, stumbling—out of the wasteland and back into the Gerudo place. Her balance wavered, and she barely managed to catch herself by slamming the palm of her hand against the gateway. With a quiet sigh, she pressed her forehead against the cold, solid stone; her head was spinning wildly, and her whole body was shaking as if wracked with fever-chills. Though the sun overhead was high and hot, she had complained of feeling cold, almost as cold as she'd been in the Ice Caverns with Ruto. Dark, sleepless patches underlined her dull blue eyes.

Navi bobbed up alongside her, whispering words of concern. Linkali blinked over at her slowly, her eyes uncomprehending. She pushed herself away from the gatehouse wall roughly, only to see unnatural hues explode in front of her already dimmed vision. She staggered, spun halfway, and landed hard on the sand-covered stone beneath her. The fairy hovering beside her let out a shrill cry that brought the gate guard running. While Lin stared blankly at the ground, the Gerudo woman grabbed her wrist to check her pulse in one hand, her other hand gently stroking the girl's cheek. "Wondered if we'd ever see you again, sister," she said in an almost conversational tone of voice.

"Will she be all right?" Navi asked. The Gerudo glanced up at her before returning her attention to the Hylian.

"She should be fine," she replied. She glanced at the wrist she held. "Her heart's running a little faster that we'd like it to be, but I've felt far worse than this. How long has it been since she last had something to drink?"

"Two days," Navi told her. "We were told to prepare for three days' travel, but she got enough water for five just to be on the safe side. When we got down to the last of the flasks, we started being more careful about how much we drank, but…we were only able to drag the supply out for an extra day."

"Two days without anything to drink when you're _already_ thirsty isn't fun," the Gerudo muttered, though it was hard to say if she was speaking to Navi or to Linkali. She turned her golden eyes more fully to the young Hylian. "Sister…sister, can you hear me?" she asked, trying to catch the girl's glassy gaze.

"Her name is Lin," Navi informed her. The guard nodded.

"Lin, can you hear me?" she tried again, to see if the youth would respond to the sound of her own name. "Lin…_Lin._" The most she received was a brief glance from unfocused eyes. Sighing sympathetically, she continued to stroke Linkali's face gently; a grim smile stole across her face as she flashed Navi a quick look. "Oh, yeah…she's fried."

"Wh-what does that mean?" The fairy sounded horrified.

"Nothing; it's just an expression." The gate guard returned her eyes to the Hylian girl on the ground in front of her, though she continued to speak to Navi. "We'll get her some fluids and a good place to rest. Don't worry—she'll recover just fine."

"You sound so sure," Navi whispered.

"I live in a _desert_," the Gerudo pointed out bluntly. "I've seen this more than once. Usually it's children who haven't had enough to drink." She smiled. "We know how to handle this." Turning away from Linkali she put two fingers to her lips and whistled loudly. "I need someone!" she called in the direction of the fortress. Moments later, a second Gerudo came running up; she eyed the young Hylian with a mixture of amusement, amazement, and affection.

"We were worried about you, sister!" the newcomer said to Lin. "We thought the Wasteland had swallowed you up!" She winked at the girl, but Linkali did not respond with anything more than a blank stare.

"All right, sister—Lin—look at me," the gate guard began, cupping one of her hands under the girl's chin. Her yellow eyes were gentle, but firm in their stare. "Let's get you back on your feet and see if we can't get some water back into you." She took both of the girl's wrists in her hands and steadily rose to her feet. Linkali hesitated at first, but it wasn't long before she too began to stand. The guard gave her an encouraging smile. "That's the way it's done…Good job."

"Why did you need the second?" Navi asked, flicking her wings at the Gerudo standing behind Lin. The gate guard did not answer immediately; too much of her attention seemed to be focused on getting Lin standing again. Shortly after she made it back upright, the Hylian gave a ragged, breathless gasp and reeled backwards, landing safely in the arms of the waiting Gerudo.

"That's why," the guard informed Navi nonchalantly, as if she had seen this situation so many times that it failed to faze her anymore. The second woman rubbed the back of her hand softly against the girl's cheek.

"Come on, sister—stay with us," she murmured. "The next few hours are going to be a lot easier and pleasant for everyone involved if you _don't_ black out." It seemed to be a great struggle for Linkali, but after a few minutes of blinking hard and gasping for breath, she managed to keep her eyes open. She shivered and shook in the Gerudo woman's arms.

"Can you take her yourself, Sabiyah?" the first asked. The one holding Lin upright nodded. "All right, I'll leave her in your care. Once she's settled, make sure to let the others know; I don't doubt they'll keep their distance when they see her, but that doesn't mean they won't be worried."

"When we first came here, few would speak to us," Navi murmured, sounding confused. Sabiyah gave her a friendly look as she started to lead Lin away from the gateway.

"Just because we didn't say anything doesn't mean we don't care," she replied. "We all saw you and noticed you when you first arrived—it wasn't hard; you both look so different from anything or anyone here. The Gerudo don't trust easily, not after all that's happened to us in the past…but that doesn't mean we're heartless." She pulled Linkali closer to her side as the girl stumbled, smiling encouragingly. "Come on, sister, don't make me carry you."

Sabiyah led the way towards the marketplace, turning up a side path instead of heading towards the rows of tents. She half-dragged the Hylian girl towards the mud-brick compound, with Navi bobbing through the air beside them. The Gerudo opened one of the doors on the hallway, steering the unresponsive Lin towards a nearby pallet. There, she sat the youth down and returned a few moments later with a small cup of water. Carefully, she wrapped Linkali's hands around the cup, letting go only when she was sure the girl would not drop it. Lin stared blankly at the water, her eyes glassy and half-focused. Sabiyah sighed. "We're going to have to do this a different way, aren't we?"

The Gerudo dipped the tips of her fingers into Linkali's cup and flicked them at the girl's face. Drops of water spattered against her skin, drawing a startled gasp from Lin. She blinked hard, jerking backwards in surprise. Sabiyah wrapped her hands around the Hylian's and lifted the cup a little higher, touching the rim of it to her lower lip. That seemed to be the necessary cue. Linkali's shaking hands tilted the cup, and she started to drink. "There you go—that's how it's done, sister." When it was empty, Sabiyah took it back gently and refilled it from a nearby jar. She had done this several times before Lin stopped shivering, and some of the glassiness began to leave her eyes. Navi watched the whole procedure in silence.

Finally, Sabiyah leaned back on her heels, setting the full cup that the girl refused down on a nearby table. "Lie down, sister," she ordered, patting the pallet lightly. Linkali obeyed without a word. "I'll leave you to rest for a while now." To Navi, she added, "If you see anything that worries you, come get me. I'll be down the hall. You've heard my name: Sabiyah. Yell it, and I'll come running."

"I can't thank you enough for all you've done," the fairy whispered gratefully. Sabiyah smiled and waved it off.

"It's nothing. What sort of people would we be if we let someone's daughter die of thirst without lifting a finger to help her?" she asked. "Just because her eyes are blue instead of gold, or her hair brown instead of red or black, or her skin pale instead of darkened by a desert sun…That doesn't make her any less our sister. Even if she were a male, we wouldn't have just let her die."

Navi watched her leave before returning her attention to the Hylian girl stretched out on the low mattress. She settled down beside Linkali's head, and there she stayed until the girl awoke a few hours later. Lin sat up slowly, holding her head in one hand. "Do you know where you are?" Navi asked softly. The young woman glanced down at her, confusion darkening her blue eyes.

"I…we…With the Gerudo…right?" she whispered. The fairy nodded. "So we made it back out of the Wasteland…" Again, Navi nodded. Linkali ran her fingers through her hair with a heavy sigh; her whole body went tense with frustration. "This is just as bad as the Shadow Temple. Nabooru's on the other side of that desert, and it doesn't look like I can get to her. It's not like I have enough money to get more supplies for the journey—buying all that water just about cleaned out my wallet."

"There might be a way I can help," Navi offered. "I mean, I didn't mention it before, because I have a feeling that it won't work for some reason, but…We could always try the Requiem of Spirit."

" 'Requiem of Spirit'? " Lin echoed, mystified. The fairy nodded. "Wait…I've heard of that before. It was…it was the song the Hero used to warp to the Spirit Temple. You would have been there when he learned it…and Saria did say that fairies have a good memory for music." She reached down the front of her mantle and produced her ocarina flute. "Teach it to me. Let's see if it works."

Together, the pair of Hylian and fairy worked on the song. The notes were simple, and one of them was repeated a number of times. Navi taught it to Lin in small pieces—just like Zelda had taught the girl the two songs she had—and worked patiently with her. Linkali was pleased when she was able to play the song all the way through without stumbling over any notes or placing her fingers incorrectly…but her happiness was short-lived when she realized that nothing happened. Again, she tried, with Navi hovering nearby and waiting nervously.

"Would I…Would I _feel_ something if it had worked?" Linkali asked, removing the mouthpiece from her lips. Navi bobbed her body in a nod. "I'll give it one more try. If that doesn't do it, then…we'll have to think of something else." She was halfway through a third attempt when the face of a Gerudo appeared in the doorway.

"Looks like you've started to recover," Sabiyah declared, grinning tenderly. "I heard you playing and wondered where this beautiful, sad music was coming from."

Linkali let her flute drop back against her chest. "You must be the one who brought me here," she said quietly. The tanned woman nodded. "I owe you my life. Thank you."

"Think nothing of it—I'm just glad to see you alive." She folded her arms over her chest. "Most people in your situation, I'd lecture about being careless in the desert, but from what I've heard, it sounds like you were pretty careful for someone whose never stepped foot in our land. Sounds like you just had a bit of bad luck." She paused. "I hear you've got your heart set on meeting with Mother Nabooru. You know, she comes by this part of the valley about once a year. You missed her by about three months, but she should be back next year."

Linkali sighed. "Thank you, but…I think that's longer than I want to wait," she said. Sabiyah shrugged lightly, the look on her face saying plainly that she figured as much. The Hylian girl fidgeted with the ocarina around her neck thoughtfully, then looked up. "Again, thank you for all you've done for me." The Gerudo woman nodded and left. Lin looked down at her clay flute, then over at Navi. "Come a little closer," she murmured.

"Why?" the fairy asked.

"Because I know who to ask for help," Lin replied. Navi studied her eyes carefully before nodding and settling down on the girl's shoulder. Linkali lifted the ocarina to her lips again, playing a different song this time. Sabiyah, just a few feet down the hall, heard the change in tune; when she walked back into the room to comment on it, there was no one there.

* * *

"Lin!" Saria cried, wrapping her arms tightly around one of the older girl's legs in an enthusiastic greeting.

"You look a little pale," Ruto commented, coming over.

"Close shave in the Gerudo Desert," Linkali replied offhandedly. "I'll be all right—I think." The second part was added in an undertone, but the Zora Sage heard it and scoffed a laugh.

"What brings you to the Sacred Realm?" Impa queried. The Sheikah's gaze was somewhat guarded, but there was no denying that she was curious as to why the young woman with in their midst once more. Lin looked between the three Sages there, and over at Darunia as he approached. She drew in her breath slowly, and released it in a calm sigh. Then, she spread her hands out in front of her and bowed her head slightly.

"I need help," she admitted. Lifting her eyes, she added, "I can't get through the Haunted Wasteland, and I know that the Sage of Spirit is on the other side of it. I…I probably came pretty close to meeting my end earlier this afternoon; I couldn't make it through."

Impa frowned thoughtfully, taking purposeful strides towards the young Hylian woman. "The Haunted Wasteland is a place of illusions," she murmured slowly. "I know you have the Lens of Truth—you used it when we fought in the Shadow Temple. She eyed the girl shrewdly. "Have you been using it?"

"Religiously," Linkali assured her. The Sage of Shadow's frown deepened.

"I tried teaching her the Requiem of Spirit," Navi pointed out, "but it didn't seem to work." Impa shook her head.

"I could have told you that," she told the fairy, waving one hand mildly in a dismissive gesture at the idea. "The warping songs that the Princess taught Link while in disguise as a Sheikah draw their power from latent forces in and around Hyrule. When Ganon took over, his dark power smothered those forces—the songs will not work, no matter how many times they are played; not even the Ocarina of Time's mystical voice will draw them out." She sighed, shrugging mildly. "That is neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is this: We need to find a way to get you through the Wasteland to find Nabooru."

"I heard that there are flags set up there," Saria chimed in. She released Linkali's leg and took a few steps back, eyeing the girl seriously. "All you would have to do is follow the flags, right? I think Nabooru told me that once."

"I think some of the flags are missing," Lin admitted, her head dropping a bit. "I would follow them for a bit, and then suddenly they would disappear. No matter which direction I walked in, I would never find another flag—because they were all spaced out the same, so I knew how far I should have had to walk to find one."

"We could have expected that," Ruto grumbled at length. "It's been nearly a century and a half since we last knew that those flags were there. And with the sandstorms that place endures, I'm honestly amazed that you were able to find _any_ markers, Lin." The finned woman folded her arms over her chest sulkily and tapped a finger against her upper arm. "I can't think of anything."

"I'm out of ideas, too," the Kokiri girl said with a sigh. "I mean, the warp song failed, the Wasteland is essentially unable to be traversed…And we saw what happened to you, Lin—and I don't think any of us want to see you go through that again. There's no telling if you'll be able to make it out if you go back in." She stamped a foot moodily against the ground. "There has to be _something_!"

"There might be a way," Darunia rumbled, speaking up for the first time that conversation. All eyes fell to him curiously.

"What?" Linkali asked hopefully. The Goron smiled at her.

"Rauru," he replied.

"Who is that?"

"He is the Sage of Light," Impa explained. Linkali noticed there was a bit of concealed coldness in her voice when she spoke those words, but she did not comment on it. The Hylian looked around curiously at the other Sages, and saw that Ruto and Saria both looked a little uncomfortable.

"So, Rauru," Lin began. "Where can I find him?" There was a few moments of silence as the Sages looked at one another, as if daring one of them to speak up first. The Sage of Forest broke the quiet first.

"Hoo boy!" Saria turned her eyes skyward, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. Beside her, Ruto gave a grin that looked a bit desperate.

"Hey, Saria…Want me to teach you how to swim?" she asked. She jerked her thumb in the direction of the lake. "We can go right now!"

"Do I ever!" Saria clasped her hands in front of her enthusiastically. The Sages of Forest and Water began stepping away from the group with swiftly, both of their faces masks of discomfort and unease. Impa fixed their backs with a cold stare.

"Stop _right_ there," she ordered in a low voice. Zora and Kokiri froze in their tracks. Ruto stood with one leg in the air, while Saria was partially on her toes with her hands pressed against her thighs. Both of them wore expressions of sheepishness and a certain unwillingness.

"Aww, _Scrubs,_" Saria muttered rebelliously. She and Ruto exchanged nervous glances before slinking back to stand in their original places. Linkali looked over at Navi, but the fairy didn't seem to know any more than she did.

"I guess my first question is this: How can he help me?" Lin asked.

"Rauru has the ability to transform himself into a large owl," Darunia answered.

"And when we say 'large owl', we mean an owl that is capable of transporting adult males," Impa clarified. The Hylian girl blinked in silent shock for a few moments before she managed to find her tongue and speak.

"…That's a _hell_ of a bird," she said at last. Ruto grinned.

"He's a hell of a man, in terms of girth size," she jibed, holding her arms out on front of herself and waddling a bit for emphasis. Saria giggled at the sight.

"_Prodigious_—that's a good word to describe him," she said, still laughing a little. Ruto nodded.

"I'll agree with that," she told the Kokiri. "A man of prodigious girth."

Linkali looked at Impa, and saw that the white-haired woman was wearing a somewhat frosty smile. "Unfortunately, as impolite as that may be, it is an accurate description of him," she murmured. Even Darunia was chuckling and nodding. Lin glanced around at the Sages again, sensing that there was something that she did not fully understand. She frowned slightly.

"And your attitudes lead me to my second question: Why do you all seem to dislike him?" she asked. The four Sages all jerked to a stop, and there was a definite charge of shame in the air. Impa spoke first.

"It is not that we _dislike_ him, so much as…" She trailed off. Ruto picked up the end of her sentence.

"…So much as that we _don't like_ him," the Zora finished. Linkali looked around again.

"Why not?"

Again, silence followed that question. Linkali knew that, if she were speaking to another Hylian, she would have, at that moment, appeared very rude. A number of vaguely personal questions had already been asked in this conversation; Lin was now prying even deeper with a direct query. She wondered if this was yet another way she had changed during her journeys, that she was now more willing to question things that did not make sense instead of being deeply and privately skeptical of them. Though she knew they would not object openly to her persistent line of questioning, the young woman thought the Sages looked just as uncomfortable as any Hylian would in this situation_._

Saria was the first to move. Her bright blue eyes flicked from Sage to Sage, her head tilting back further as she went from Ruto to Impa to Darunia. She seemed to crick her neck looking up at the massive Fire Sage, because as Linkali watched, the small girl clutched the back of her neck with a soft _Ow._ Bringing her eyes back down, the Kokiri girl looked over at Lin. With the frank, unabashed honesty of a child, she declared, "He's weird." Linkali was almost too startled to laugh. "If you ask my opinion, it's because of the whole 'I can change into a bird"' thing." Saria flapped her arms for emphasis, and Lin was immediately reminded of her younger sister; that was something Tali would have done. "See, the rest of us all had one life to live. I was one of the Kokiri, Darunia was the Big Boss of the Gorons, Ruto was the Princess of Zora, Impa had duties at the Castle, and Nabooru…well, Nabooru's always been a little free-spirited and loose, but at least she had one and only one place to be. Rauru…well, Rauru's a Hylian, deep down, but he spends a lot of his time as an owl. So much so that he tends to forget his current species. Like, when he's a Hylian, he'll start _hooting_. It's creepy." She paused, looking briefly around at the others. "So…He's weird. That's why…I guess…"

" 'Weird' may be a good word to describe him," Darunia admitted, "but perhaps there is a better one. Not 'carefree', I think…"

"Carefree's not so bad," Ruto pointed out wryly. "We've got a prime example of it right down here"—she jerked her thumb at the tiny Sage of Forest—"and she's not so bad."

Saria beamed. "Yep—huhwhat?" She blinked up at the Zora. " 'Down here'?" Ruto, grinning with mischief, bent at the knees and measured the Kokiri girl's diminutive height. Saria scowled up at her. "Uh! Well, ex-cuuuuse me, Princess!" **(1) **she retorted, and strutted off to stand closer to Darunia with her nose in the air. The Sage of Fire scooped her up gently and rested her on his broad shoulder. Saria, whose head was now considerably higher than Ruto's, stuck out her tongue playfully at the Zora.

Linkali watched the exchange with great amusement before returning her attention to the more serious task at hand. "So, where can I find him?" she asked. Silence greeted her question again, though Lin sensed that this time, it was more that the Sages were unsure of how to answer her, rather than simply not wanting to.

As before, Darunia was the one who broke the quiet. "That's the other thing, little Brother," he rumbled softly. "None of us really know. You see, Rauru roamed all over Hyrule, even before he took up the mantle of the Sage, and he has never stopped. None of us really know where to start looking."

Lin sighed heavily, unable to keep from feeling like she had taken two steps forward and three steps back. Still, progress was progress: She now knew that there was a way that she could skip over the Haunted Wasteland and find herself at the Desert Colossus to find Nabooru. The trouble was that no one—not even the ever-watching Sages—knew exactly where she could find it. The Hylian girl forced a smile, though she knew it wouldn't reach her eyes and could tell from the others' reactions that they knew it was feigned. "Still, thank you for helping," she said. "I…I'll figure out a way." She reached into the pouch of Medallions and drew out the yellow one, the Medallion of Light. The girl wrapped her fingers around it briefly before depositing it back in her bag.

"Take care," Impa told her, giving her a rare, warm smile. A glint of concern appeared in the Sage of Shadow's crimson eyes. "Rest for now, though, and make sure to keep up on your fluids. You still look rather pale from your ordeal in the Haunted Wasteland."

Linkali nodded. She figured she should go chasing after the Sage of Light just yet. She wanted to go back to her village, but even though it had been a little more than a week, she was still uncomfortable with the idea of seeing her parents. That they had not asked _what _she would be doing was…concerning. The Hylian youth wasn't totally sure she was ready to face that just yet. After she felt Navi settle down on her shoulder, she pulled out her ocarina and played the song that would send her back to Hyrule.

**(1)You cannot **_**fathom**_** how much I have wanted to slip this line into a Zelda fic, and actually have it make sense and not be all rude and awkward.**

**Also, I understand that some people do not support the theory that Rauru is the same as Kaepora Gaebora (otherwise known as the f-cking annoying owl). Obviously, I do, even though some parts make it a little tricky. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong; I'll try to argue my case. :3**


	21. 20: Kaepora Gaebora, Sage of Light

Though her village was temptingly close by, and despite the fact that it had been more than a week since she'd last seen anyone from there, Linkali opted to camp out in the Field that night. Some gut instinct told her to avoid confronting her parents just yet—something about their lack of questions when she had last left Kokoria still hadn't settled with her. (Even though Hylians preferred not to ask personal questions, that courtesy didn't usually exist between parents and their children.) If she were still new to adventuring, Lin would never have _dreamed_ of spending the night outside of the safety of a village; however, she had been around enough and seen enough monsters to know their habits, and was able to find a place where she knew she would not be bothered. Before she settled down, the Hylian girl filled up all of the empty bottles from her ill-fated trip into the Haunted Wasteland, and spent most of the evening drinking in an attempt to replenish the fluids she had lost over the past few days.

The sunset was truly impressive, though most of its beauty came from the brilliant bursts of color that the sinking sun painted on the bottoms of the low-hanging clouds. Linkali sat back on her hands, smiling at the horizon while Navi rested on her shoulder. The last of the sunlight tinted Hyrule Field with a muted sort of orange light, while the clouds above reflected it in brighter, more vivid tones. Streaks of yellow mingled there—like paint that has not been completely mixed together—and at the eastern edge, there were hints of a deepening, lavender twilight. Lin sighed contentedly, giving a half-smile. "You know…it was a night like this that made me more comfortable with the idea of leaving my village," she murmured. Navi turned.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes," Linkali replied. "I was on goat duty that afternoon, and a straggler managed to get away from me. I went back out after bringing the flock in to try and find it…and it was the first time I had ever willingly been outside the village that late." She shook her head. "I was nervous, but not really afraid—more curious than anything else, really. As I was riding Ganga back into the village, though, I remember seeing the sunset blending together, and wondering if I was the only person in Kokoria to have ever seen something like that." She grinned a little wider. "When Zelda told me that I would have to go out and break the seals on the six Sages, I knew that leaving the village would mean I could see something like that again and again, as many times as the sky permitted."

"That's beautiful, Lin," the fairy whispered softly, resting her warm cheek against her Hylian partner's. Linkali glanced down at her tenderly.

"For a Hylian, I'm surprisingly well-traveled," she said. "I mean, I know plenty of people back home who have only ever traveled to Lonran or other nearby villages." She sat up a little straighter, ticking off on her fingers as she spoke. "I've been to the Kirikiri Forest, and Death Mountain, and Zoras' Domain, and Kakariko Village, and the Gerudo Desert." She blinked, plain shock filling her eyes for a few moments. "I sometimes find it hard to believe half of the places I've seen."

"You enjoy traveling, don't you?" Navi dimmed her glow so that the youth could see her smile. Lin couldn't help grinning back, her eyes brimming with happiness.

"Yes…I really do," she said quietly, leaning back on her hands again. "It's…I never realized what fun it could be until I was actually doing it for myself. I've always read about it in stories, and I think that deep down I always wanted to do it for myself, but…well, Hyrule being the way it is, no one ever thought I could—that _anyone_ could."

"You are not like others of your people, Lin," Navi reminded her. "Don't forget: You carry the Triforce of Courage, and a piece of the spirit of the Hero of Time himself." Linkali nodded. "I think that's definitely helped you along the way, but I think that a good part of it is also the kind of woman you are. You always say that your father raised you and your younger sister to be independent, strong, confident young women; I don't doubt that that upbringing has helped you be as strong as you are."

"I bet you're right," Linkali murmured. She cast a glance in the direction of Kokoria Village, smiling to herself. Though she was certainly avoiding him now, she could not deny how much she loved her father—loved both of her parents, really. It hurt, just as it always had, to be apart from those she loved, but Lin knew that right now, it was likely for the best. Instinctively, she sensed that trouble lay in wait for her back in her village; instinct had never steered her wrong before, and she was not about to start doubting it now. _I'll have to go back soon, though,_ she thought, and a sparkle of unease crept into her gaze. _After all, I don't have enough money to buy more supplies from the Gerudo. Well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it, as Bartal says._

Thoughts of her reckless male friend made Linkali's throat tighten; she missed him almost if not _as_ much as she missed her parents. A part of her wished that she could go back to the way things had been before she had learned of her destiny, where the only thing she had to worry about was whether or not hers and Bartal's latest stunt would kill them, or if their planned prank would bring them more punishment than fun. The Hylian girl sighed quietly under her breath, closing her eyes until the moment of sadness passed over her.

A piece of her might wish for the simpler days, but a larger part of Lin knew that she could not dwell too long on the past. Though those days were filled with countless happy memories for her, she knew that if she continued on her quest—and succeeded—even greater happiness lay ahead for her and all of Hyrule. It wasn't going to be easy, but she had already made her promise to Zelda and the Sages: She _would_ restore the Master Sword to its former power, and she _would_ strike back against the Evil King. That was her one true goal now; it was her destiny.

And as difficult as it was sure to be, Linkali would not back down from the challenge.

* * *

The sun overhead was mercilessly hot, and it blazed in the cloudless sky like a fiery eye. Lin reached out with one gauntleted hand tentatively and stroked the heated, red-brown stone lightly, wary of burning her fingers. She could feel the incredible heat radiating off the rock even without touching it, and saw that the air just above it was so heated that it seemed to waver and wriggle restlessly. Removing her hand from the rock face, the young woman began to walk along the edge of the ridge, her dark blue eyes shifting around calmly, as if seeking out familiar sights. Of course, she had been here before—the Warrior's Spirit had brought her here to instruct her in how to use the Fairy Bow, as well as unlock her dormant magic potential.

Linkali recalled the moments just before she remembered falling asleep, and the chilliness that had descended over her own hand, that feeling as if a cold hand had laced its fingers with hers. _That must be the Warrior's Spirit bringing me to these places,_ she thought, nodding. _The past few times I've felt it, I've opened my eyes to see that field, or this mountain, or the Ice Cavern. What kind of spirit is he, if he can take me to places in dreams—and what _are_ these places, even?_ She shook her head. Though it bothered her not to know the concrete facts, the girl couldn't deny that she enjoyed these dreams, inexplicable as they may be. She hadn't been lying when she'd told Navi earlier that evening that she loved to travel; dreams with the Warrior's Spirit were a kind of travel in and of themselves.

Bringing to mind the last time she had been on this dream-mountain, the Hylian youth walked to the end of the cliff and stood in the shade of the lone, scabby tree there. The Warrior's Spirit always seemed to show up in the same spots in these dream worlds, and Linkali was hardly surprised when she saw him standing patiently at the foot of the cliff. A huge grin split her face at the sight of the armored warrior, and she waved down at him. The Spirit returned the wave. "Good to see you, Lin!" he called up. Changing his wave to a beckoning motion, he added, "Come down—I would like to get started soon."

Lin nodded. (Though she had gone to bed feeling tired and drained, she found that she felt strong once more—come to think of it, she'd _never_ felt the pain of the waking world when she was with the Spirit.) The girl took one step towards the redstone spurs that dotted the side of the cliff, hesitated, and turned away. Her footsteps led her to the side of the ridge, and there she took hold of the rope ladder and climbed down the side of the rock. The Warrior's Spirit walked around to meet her. When Linkali's feet were firmly on the ground, he rested a gauntleted hand on her shoulder and gently pulled her in closer. The youth embraced him briefly, happy to see the man again. "You took the easy way down this time, I see," he commented, amusement gilding his deep voice. Lin shrugged as she stepped back.

"I learn from my mistakes pretty well," she told him. The armored Spirit nodded his approval.

"That should serve you well tonight," he said. "We will be practicing your swordplay again."

"Good." Lin rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, sheathed at her left hip as if it had always been there since the beginning of the dream. She harbored the suspicion that it hadn't, but she didn't feel like expending a lot of energy wondering how it had appeared. Deep down, though, she was practically bursting with curiosity; it seemed that every time she needed something in one of these dreams—or even _reached_ for it—it simply appeared without any indication that it hadn't been there before. Linkali suppressed these thoughts, figuring that for now her energy should be spent learning from her mysterious tutor. "I could always use the practice."

The Warrior's Spirit nodded and led the way down the path beside the high ridge; the trail sloped down into a shady canyon, whose shadowed walls echoed back the sounds of their footsteps so that it seemed as if many people were traversing the gorge. Lin glanced around briefly before returning her attention to the warrior walking ahead of her. She hadn't told Navi—and indeed, she hardly believed it herself, thinking that it was a delusion brought on by thirst—but towards the end of her journey through the Haunted Wasteland, she remembered hearing a voice. The voice, gentle and calm and cool as morning mist, had guided her through the shifting sands, encouraging her to persevere and instructing her which way to go. She only vaguely remembered hearing it (since at the time, her mind had been clouded and delirious), but she could recall two things clearly: the voice had been male, and she had recognized it.

Before Linkali could ask the man in front of her if _he_ had been the guiding voice in the desert, her train of thought was cut abruptly short by the sudden bright sunlight at the end of the gorge. She blinked in silence for a few minutes, her eyes adjusting to the change in lighting. The sun was nowhere near as harsh here as it had been on the other end of the gorge—even though the clearing she had entered was just as exposed—but it was still brighter than in the dark canyon. The Warrior's Spirit turned to face Lin. "Since we have already sparred once, I believe you already know that neither blade will cut or injure; this will allow us to train as if the fight were real and our lives in peril, which will more likely than not be the circumstances in the waking world." Linkali nodded. "However, there is also something else to remember, another earthly constraint by which you are not bound in this place: Your magic power."

Curious, the girl tilted her head to the side. The man continued, "No matter what you do here and now, you will not run through your reserves of magic. If you truly wanted, you could summon the Lens of Truth and gaze through it for all eternity without ever once feeling tired or run-down." He lowered his head slightly, and Linkali felt his eyes lock onto hers. "This will be of great use to us here, for I have a technique that I believe will help you out in your quest." He drew his own, two-handed blade, and Lin followed suit. "No—sheathe your sword for now, and observe. There will be time to practice it once you have seen it performed."

The Hylian youth did as she was told, hopping up onto a flat-topped chunk of loose mountain stone to watch; her long legs hung down over the edge of the rock. The Warrior's Spirit faced her as he spoke. "This technique requires slightly less magic to use than the creation of a Light Arrow—which I hope you have been practicing?" Lin nodded. She'd done most of that practice in the Shadow Temple, and to say that Navi had been startled to see the girl's arrows glowing with golden light was an understatement. (As much as Linkali hated that place, she had to admit that it had given her by far the most practice with magic use.) "Good. You are drawing more and more on your potential, and expanding your abilities; I can sense it." His visor gleamed brightly as he turned his head to the side, presumably to study her out of the corner of one eye. "The Len of Truth is somewhat less of a burden to you now, is it not?" Linkali nodded again. "Still, it would be best if you expanded your abilities even further, and hopefully some of our work tonight will help that."

The Warrior's Spirit stepped back several feet. Linkali watched curiously as he planted his feet firmly on the ground a bit apart, bending low at the knees. He shifted his grip from two-handed to one, so that the tip of his sword was pointing down, and braced his right hand against the underside of the blade. His head lowered just slightly. The Hylian youth watching felt a small pulse in the air, a subtle current of power. It tingled over her skin, vaguely electric and wholly mystical. _Magic._ The far-off, tinny burring of a cicada hummed along with the energy in the air, its strange cry harmonizing with the mystic hum. The Spirit's head dropped a little lower with concentration as the pulsing of the magic around him grew stronger.

Linkali's jaw dropped open a moment later as the man's sword began to glow with a cool, blue light. The steady, throbbing hum of magic strengthened as the light grew brighter, shining calmly in defiance of the burning sun overhead. The Warrior's Spirit held firm in his stance, totally absorbed in his technique. Lin could only stare in awe as the blue light took on a greenish edge, and then steadily morphed into a brilliant orange—as bright as the painted clouds the evening before. It coursed down the length of his blade in ripples and waves. She could feel the magic pulsing freely through the air now, prickling over her skin and singing in her blood. It thrilled her, excited her; she wanted nothing more than to try what she was seeing for herself.

The Warrior's Spirit suddenly tightened his grip on his massive sword, moving his right hand back to the hilt. With a wild, furious cry of exertion, he spun sharply on one foot, and brought the glowing blade around in a complete circle, finishing again with both feet firmly on the ground. The gathered energy seemed to fly from his weapon, creating a veritable shock wave that flewthrough the air around him. Despite the fact that he stood a good ways away from Linkali, the girl was actually thrown back against the rock wall—although perhaps _thrown_ is not the best word; it felt more like she had been _pushed_ backwards by some immensely powerful arm thrust against her chest. She struck the wall with a startled _Gkkt_, but was otherwise unharmed. The armored man was quick to sheathe his weapon and dart to her side. "Are you all right?" he asked, resting one hand gently on her knee. The Hylian girl nodded.

"Yes, I… I'm okay," she replied. Her eyes grew round, and glowed with wonder and disbelief. "That was _incredible_, Spirit!"

A soft chuckle issued from behind the golden faceguard. "Would you like to learn how it's done?" the Warrior's Spirit asked. The youth couldn't help herself—she nodded with childish enthusiasm. He laughed again and offered her his hand to help her down from the rock on which she was perched. "The Spin Attack is a devastating technique, useful for hitting enemies at a distance and with great power." He paused. "Clearly, you were able to feel firsthand just how strong of a shock wave the move deals out."

"It shoved me away, and I wasn't even that close!" Lin grinned roguishly. The Warrior's Spirit nodded.

"Stand beside me and imitate," he ordered, placing his feet apart and bending his knees. Linkali obeyed, glancing between his body and hers to make sure she copied his stance properly. The Spirit nodded. "Now, draw your blade and hold it behind you. It may help if you do a simple forward slash and continue the motion until the sword is where you want it." She followed his instructions and waited patiently as he made a few gentle corrections. "Good. Get a feel for that stance, then stand up and try to assume it again without my coaching." The girl hesitated. "Come now, Lin, we do not have all night."

The admonishment confused the Hylian for a few seconds before she reminded herself that she was indeed dreaming—that somewhere back in Hyrule, her body was asleep under the stars. It was honestly easy to forget that when the world around her felt so _real_. It was a strange reality—the empty sky, baking heat, and odd-sounding insect cries were testament to that—but it was a _convincing_ one. Everything around her was just as she might expect it to feel in the waking world, down to the faint odor of sweat that rose from the two warriors. She shook herself slightly to snap out of these thoughts, reminding herself that what the armored man had said was true: She did not have all night to learn this technique, not if she wanted to have some time to dedicate to actual sleep.

A little haltingly, Lin rose from her careful stance and attempted to place herself back in it again. Feet spread, knees bent, sword behind her…She looked over and saw the Warrior's Spirit nodding his approval. "Well done," he praised. "Lift your sword a bit higher, though—that's it. Now comes the hard part: Drawing out your magic. I know that you have been using your power more and more since you first unlocked it, but you have been using it for smaller things, such as banishing and the Lens of Truth." Linkali ducked her head. "No, no, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have been using your magic for more practical purposes, and now you will be using it to attack. As I am sure you are aware, it takes a different sort of focus to draw out magic for offense—remember creating the Light Arrows."

Linkali nodded. "I will help you the first time, but after that, it will be you alone," the Spirit told her. Lin closed her eyes, recalling what she had done to add mythical power to her shafts. She felt the man come up behind her, overlapping their stances and laying his left hand over hers. It was not awkward for the young Hylian to have a grown man standing so close to her. Well, not _this_ man, at any rate. Linkali didn't mind the gentle press of the Warrior's Spirit's sun-warmed armor against her back, or the gentle grip of his hand; she knew that there was something unique, some strange connection between them that defied logic, and she felt a certain tie to him. He was her mentor, a kindred spirit, and she was not bothered by having someone she felt so comfortable around standing so close. The girl felt his chin come to rest on her shoulder.

"Breathe deeply," he whispered, and Linkali obeyed without hesitation. She started reaching down within herself, grasping at the power she knew lay inside. She felt his arm move with hers, extending her reach and bringing her closer to what lay within her soul. They worked in perfect synchrony with each other and moved in total unison, almost as if they were one and the same. Lin grasped—gently—at the sleeping power, and with his aid, brought it to her hand. A new light began to glow in front of her closed eyelids; when she opened her eyes, she saw the sword in her hand was now shimmering with faint blue light. "Draw deeper," the man behind her urged. "Do not stop merely because you have created light—anyone can do that. Here, you have no limits; show me how much power you can gather, Lin."

Linkali closed her eyes again, and sought out the power inside her. She could feel the Warrior's Spirit there beside her, stretching her arm and broadening her grasp. She accepted his help eagerly, building more and more magic into her arm, as much as she could. Her blood was racing through her veins, flying from her heart and singing thunderously in her ears. The thrill—the rush—it was almost unbearable! Lin felt unbelievably alive at that instant, and strong beyond her wildest dreams. The pale light in front of her closed eyelids grew brighter and brighter with each sweep she made to gather more magic. She moved to take even more, but found that her arm had ceased to reach; something, someone, was holding her back.

"Enough," the Warrior's Spirit commanded gently; it was he who had stopped her. "Any more and your arm will burst apart. You may not have any limits on how much magic you can draw out here, but your body still has limits on what it can and cannot endure. Though I doubt you will ever have need for this much power, I want you to set this as your limit, Lin. Never put any more power than this—what you currently have—into your hand." The girl nodded. "Now open your eyes."

Linkali did as she was told, her eyes flying open wide in amazement at the humming, shining sword she held in her hand. Sunset-orange light rolled down the blade in shimmering waves. She heard the leaves of the forest behind her rustling, and saw that the waves of energy she was sending out were causing them to whisper among themselves as if gossiping about her newfound power. Lin smiled, glancing out of the sides of her eyes at the Spirit behind her. His head was at such an angle that she could peek past the outer edge of his golden visor and see a small part of his face. In the glow from her blade, she glimpsed the strong line of his jaw, and followed it upwards steadily; though he closed his eyes when he saw her looking, Linkali caught a glimpse of a single, gentle, impossibly dark blue iris. She returned her attention to the weapon in her hand, and after a moment, the armored Spirit spoke to her again.

"I will guide the first swipe," he told her. "Move with me so that you will be able to get a feel for the motion." Linkali nodded. Closing her eyes to block out the mountain around her, she surrendered herself to his guidance. She felt him draw back, turn slightly, and tense the muscles of his right leg; she did the same in perfect sync. He swung his left leg forward, and she mirrored him effortlessly. Youth and adult both pivoted with and lashed out with the sword whose grip they shared, letting out loud cries that echoed and harmonized eerily over the sunny mountain. Linkali felt the gathered energy fall from her hand and into the sword, and felt it push back the air with a shock wave. She opened her blue eyes just in time to see the wall of orange light slam into a pile of loose rubble by the rock wall. The small stones burst into the air like a fountain, scattering in all directions as they were struck. Lin blinked in amazement, barely noticing when the Warrior's spirit stepped away from her.

"Now, it is your turn," he informed her, folding his arms mildly over his chest. "Use what I have shown you, and see if you can perform the Spin Attack without my assistance."

Her pulse still racing excitedly, Linkali nodded. She set her body in the starting stance carefully, eager to show her teacher that she was a worthy pupil. Her dark blue eyes fell closed calmly and she started reaching deep inside herself for the power she knew slept there. It brushed her hand gently; the Hylian reached further and lifted it into her grip, then channeled it into her sword arm. Each time she did this, the power seemed to grow further and further away, and she would have to extend her reach farther to get to it. Finally, she could feel it no longer. Without the help of the Warrior's Spirit, this was as far as she could go. Lin opened her eyes, smirking proudly at her sword. The light that coursed over the blade and up the lower part of her arm was blue, but there were definite hints of green along the edges. She looked over at her armored mentor excitedly. He nodded.

"Impressive, considering that was your own work," he told her, stepping further back. "Release it, Lin—show me what you are capable of!"

Linkali nodded briskly. She tensed her right leg firmly for a pivot point. Her blood humming in her ears to the mystical refrain in the air, she swung her left leg around with a loud cry of exertion. The glowing edge of her sword sliced a clean, sharp arc through the air around her as she spun; the gathered magic fell away from her blade in an expanding wave of light. The shock wave disintegrated before it ever touched the Warrior's Spirit, but Lin saw the green cap on his head flutter behind him like a flag in the breeze, a sure sign that she had disturbed the air near to him. She sensed a smile beneath his visor, but the relief that she had not disappointed him was short-lived. "All right, again!" he commanded, flicking his hand sharply through the air. The Hylian girl got the feeling that he was more proud of her than he let on, but she wasn't about to suck up to him for praise. The knowledge that she had done something right was good enough for her. Besides, he had given her an order to continue. Without pausing for more than a few seconds, she set her body back into the appropriate stance and reached again for her magic.

The Warrior's Spirit had her perform the attack many more times before calling for a break. Linkali was pleased to discover that he had been right—she didn't feel drained at all! It felt as if she were surrounded by magic, and that it flowed in and out of her as easily as her breath might. She still had to grasp at it, but that never dragged her down or sapped her strength. When the armored man told her to stop, she was a little dizzy and breathless from all her spinning, but other than that, she felt fine.

"I do believe, Lin, that you have yet to disappoint me," he said, walking over to clap a hand on her shoulder. Linkali flashed him a grateful look as she sheathed her sword. "I expected no less from the Hero's Incarnation and the bearer of the Triforce of Courage."

The youth just barely managed to hold down a flinch at those words. She closed her eyes to keep her misgivings and shame from showing up when he mentioned the Hero of Time; she tried to make it look as if she were merely tired. When Linkali opened them again, there was nothing but calm and pride to be seen in her eyes. (She had reminded herself of all the positive things he had said so far.) "When we first met," the Spirit continued, "I told you that as long as you persevered and had courage, you would triumph. You have come far, and there is not much left to your journey."

Lin paused. "Spirit, can I ask you something?" The man nodded. "You seem to know a bit about Hyrule—and I can tell by your ears that you are, or at least _were_, a Hylian like me."

"Though I have had companions more knowledgeable than I over the years, I do know some," the Warrior's Spirit admitted. Linkali frowned briefly. Of course, he could be referring to anyone or anything with those words; Navi wasn't the _only_ savvy person in Hyrule who had ever allied herself with someone. "What would you like to know?"

"What can you tell me about Rauru?" she asked.

"The Sage of Light?"

"Yes. I need to find him if I want to have any hope of breaking the seal on the Sage of Spirit."

"You wish to use his wings to help you forgo the Haunted Wasteland, correct?"

"That's exactly what I want to do."

The Warrior's Spirit hummed thoughtfully. After a moment, he flicked his hand for the girl to follow him. Linkali padded obediently after him as he led the way into the thick forest that stood at the edge of the mountain clearing. In stark contrast to the naked, sun-bathed stone, the forest was cool and verdant. Sunlight slanting through the thick foliage made the air around the two warriors glow bright emerald green. Lin gazed around at the broad-bodied trees as she walked, inhaling deeply the moist air, which was rich with the fresh smell of green growth. The chirring of the metallic cicadas was swapped for the distant, hollow trilling of warblers. She hardly noticed when the forest began to thin, and she was a little startled to realize that she was now standing at the edge of a rolling forest clearing. A spur of nostalgia pricked the back of her mind; this was the same clearing in which she had first spoken to the Warrior's Spirit! Did that mean that the eerily silent field and the simmering mountainside were connected by that same forest?

The Warrior's Spirit settled down on one of the slabs of cool gray stone nearby, removing his sword and shield, and laying them on the grass at his feet. Linkali followed suit, her eyes fixed on the face hidden behind his golden visor. The armored man began to speak. "Rauru is an ancient Sage," he explained, "and he has held that title for far longer than any other Sage that you have encountered and unsealed, Lin. He was among those who built the Temple of Time for the purpose of protecting the entrance to the Sacred Realm. When Ganon entered the Sacred Realm and attempted to claim the power of the Triforce for himself, Rauru was the one who protected and sealed away the young Hero of Time; he was also the first to greet the Hero when he awoke seven years later."

"I was told that he also roamed Hyrule in the form of an owl," Lin pointed out, "and that that habit makes it difficult for the other Sages to track him." The Warrior's Spirit nodded.

"Yes; it was how he kept a closer watch on the land he and his forebears had worked so long to defend," he replied. "It was in those travels that he encountered a young boy leaving the Kokiri Forest—or as it is known in Hyrule today, the Kirikiri Forest." Linkali detected a hint of sadness in his voice as he added the second part. "This boy carried the Spiritual Stone of Forest with him; Rauru was intrigued as to what that might mean, and so he followed the boy on his journeys, advising him whenever their paths crossed."

Grim amusement stole into the armored warrior's voice at those words, and when he spoke his next sentences, Linkali sensed a sort of grudging, long-suffering affection. "Despite his intimidating appearance, Rauru—or as he gave his name in his owl form, Kaepora Gaebora—was always eager to help and advise, though his advice could be rather cryptic and his way of delivering it long-winded. He would never hesitate to repeat himself…even if the person he was addressing did not always want him to do so." The man sighed. "Even when he wasn't offering advice, he still loved to perch at crossroads of well-traveled roads and talk to passerby."

"Do you think he might still do that?" Lin asked curiously. It was difficult to tell what the Warrior's Spirit was thinking, since she could not see his facial expression, but the rest of the man's body language did not say that he was unsure. After a moment, he nodded.

"I believe he may," he replied. "It is worth investigating." The blue-eyed Hylian girl nodded, keeping her eyes to the side to hide the many emotions flickering in them—none of which would bode well for the Warrior's Spirit. Linkali's armored teacher rose to his feet and calmly strapped on his sword and shield again. "In the mean time, Lin, I think it would be best if we ended our meeting for tonight."

Linkali pushed herself up from the rock, buckling her own blade to her hip again. The Warrior's Spirit reached out and gently enfolded her long-fingered hands in his own. "Remember the lessons imparted to you tonight," he told her. "We shall meet again, another night." At those words, the forest clearing faded to black, leaving the two Hylian warriors in silence and darkness. The Warrior's Spirit smiled beneath his visor. "Take care," he said, and released her hands, sending her falling slowly back into the black.

Linkali threw her arms forward with the speed of a striking snake and wrapped her hands tightly around the Spirit's wrists.

A startled, choked gasp echoed softly out from beneath the Warrior's Spirit's golden faceguard at the sight of the girl clinging to him like a lifeline. Lin snapped her eyes up, and they drilled past the visor and into his own. "Hold it _right_ there," she hissed softly. "Not tonight, Spirit. Not tonight." She glanced around briefly at the black that surrounded them. "Why don't we go back so that you and I can talk a bit more?"

The armored man was silent for a few minutes, and Linkali knew that he had not expected the bold move. The darkness seemed to shimmer around them, and seconds later, the two warriors were standing in the middle of the field of high grass. _He was so startled that he didn't put us back where we had last been,_ Lin though. She stamped the ground experimentally with both feet to make sure that it was stable and secure before she released her grip on his armor-plated forearms. The girl folded her arms over her chest and took a few steps back as a precaution; the Warrior's Spirit wasn't going to be taking hold of her until she was ready.

"What is it, Lin?" the man asked. Linkali frowned.

"Who _are_ you?" she demanded suspiciously. "And don't tell me 'the Warrior's Spirit'—that's not your name, and that doesn't tell me a thing about you." She waited a few moments for an answer, but upon receiving none, she continued her line of questioning. "How do you know all the things you know? Why do you have skill in so many different fields? How do you take me to these places—and where _are_ we, even?" She shook her head, confusion raw in her dark eyes. "I've been holding back and holding back, and I can't take it anymore. Call me rude, but I _have_ to know!"

Linkali's blue stare pinned the armored Hylian to the spot, burning with curiosity, mistrust, and an overwhelming urge to understand. She loved the Warrior's Spirit, she truly did—she wouldn't have gotten half as far as she had without his gentle guidance and teaching. He treated her with kindness and respect, praising her and holding her to high standards. He was almost like a father to her, a patient, loving teacher who only wanted to see her triumph and succeed where others had crashed and burned. His encouragement and mentoring had played a major role in making her into the confident warrior she was now. The affection and respect he gave her was mutual; she returned it with all her heart.

But she was infuriated that he seemed so hesitant to explain himself.

The minutes ticked past in silence before the Warrior's Spirit spoke. "I have never lied to you before," he said slowly, as if taking great pains to shape every consonant and vowel perfectly, "and I am not lying to you now. The time for you to learn all of those things, and more, is fast approaching—you will not be left uncertainty forever. However…that time has not yet arrived."

Linkali sighed, long and slowly. She studied him in silence for a few moments. "Fair enough," she said. She did not sound defeated, but rather accepting; however, disappointment burned darkly in her eyes. Calmly, she uncrossed her arms and held out her hands to him, so that he could send her to sleep. The Spirit took her hands with the same tenderness that he always did; he did not appear to be angered by her outburst of question, but instead, merely startled. "But I _expect_ that day to come."

"And it shall," he assured her. "Take care, Lin." The high grass of the field faded into blackness at his words, and the Warrior's Spirit released Linkali's hands lightly. The Hylian youth fell backwards, landing softly in the arms of sleep.

* * *

"Oh, merciful Din!" Linkali cried out as she dove under the razor-sharp talons of the swooping owl; she avoided a brutal slashing by fractions of an inch. Quickly, the girl scrambled to her feet and bolted in the opposite direction, glancing over her shoulder to check for avian pursuit. The massive owl was gliding up and away, but Lin had seen enough Cuccos in flight to know by the way he held his wings that he was planning to come right back around again. (She and Bartal had provoked enough of them—sometimes unintentionally, as difficult as that might be to believe—and had incurred the wrath of the entire flock coming to their injured brother or sister's defense; she knew _exactly_ what a bird's wings looked like when said bird was preparing to dive-bomb you viciously.)

Navi's body flashed yellow with alarm as she zipped after her Hylian partner. Linkali pulled to a halt, turning to face the owl that was now screaming towards her on broad, dark wings. She swallowed hard and drew her sword. When dealing with Cuccos, fighting back was never effective, but Kaepora Gaebora—what the owl had introduced himself as before diving down from his perch towards the youth's head with talons outstretched—was not a Cucco. When the owl flew nearer, he flipped his lower body forwards, claws aimed right at Lin's face. The young woman lashed out with her sword, scoring a clean line down the middle of his left foot. Kaepora Gaebora pumped his wings, drawing back with a furious screech.

The two combatants, Hylian and owl, were squaring off on the open stretch of land at Zoras' River. Fortunately for Lin, the first place she had thought to check had been the right choice: She had seen the massive bird perched atop the crumbling stone wall shortly after leaping across the shallow river. Their exchange had been brief; she had called out the name of the Sage of Light upon seeing him, and he had shot up into the air and moved in to strike with unbelievable speed as if _Rauru_ were the word in Owl for _Attack me now, please_. Because Rauru would have sealed away the aura and power that made him a Sage, Navi could not sense that in him to know whether or not this owl was the corrupted Sage. Linkali wasn't terribly worried about a case of mistaken identity, though. How many owls of this size could there be in Hyrule, anyway?

Kaepora Gaebora folded his wings against his body and streaked through the air towards the Hylian youth. Lin again threw herself under him to avoid being shredded by his powerful talons, but she mistakenly dove at an angle; one of the owl's claws grazed a line of blood and fire down her shoulder, drawing a sharp hiss of pain from the girl. Linkali spun as she sped under his body, landing hard on her backside with her hands spread out behind to break her fall. Kaepora Gaebora coasted into a turn, sweeping around to charge her yet again. Lin staggered to her feet, her right hand gripping her injured shoulder to slow to blood flow. The mighty owl screeched as he dove toward her, his blank yellow eyes wild with fury.

Linkali had heard rumors more than once of travelers who had run into this owl; however, without talking to the Sages and the Warrior's Spirit, she never would have guessed that he could be a corrupted Sage from days gone by. She knew that he was a relentless creature, a fighting bird that seemed to have taken a few lessons from the vindictive Cuccos. She also knew that when confronted, he often fled, and she wasn't about to let that happen. That is why, when she saw him pull up after his most recent attempt to claw her (which had ended with her dealing him another swift slice with her blade), she was quick to sheath her sword. Already, she could see the owl beginning to turn his wings to fly to coop.

Spinning her hands around quickly, she summoned the Hookshot to her hands. With practiced ease, she twisted the handle and brought the column down hard, releasing it as the chain let fly. The pointed hook at the end of the weapon's chain zipped through the air like a meteor towards the owl. Kaepora Gaebora flipped his talons forward and caught it deftly, screeching shrilly with anger. Linkali grinned, pumping her fist to congratulate herself. As long as the owl held onto her chain, he wouldn't be able to flee the fight. He hovered there, beating his massive wings to stay aloft, never once releasing the chain of the Hookshot.

"Wait," Lin whispered, looking over at Navi before returning her eyes to the owl. "If he lets go, I lose him; if I let go, I lose the Hookshot. But if he holds on and I don't let go…" He blue eyes, bright with horrified realization, shifted down to the weapon. She heard the soft click that signaled the start of the Hookshot's automatic reloading, and shut her eyes tightly with a long-suffering sigh. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, I really wish I'd thought this _through!_" The last word became a drawn-out scream of panic as the spring-loaded weapon began to rewind its chain, pulling Linkali up towards the massive bird, who began to pound the air harder with his wings to rise up in flight.

The Hookshot finished pulling in its chain within seconds, and the instant that it did, Kaepora Gaebora released his grip on it, and instead fastened his talons around Lin's left arm. The Hylian youth wrapped her other arm around the owl's legs to keep gravity from wrenching her shoulder out of its socket. She clutched his scaled legs tightly, her heart racing in her chest. _Don't you dare drop me!_ she though fiercely, although she knew that the huge owl had no intention of doing that. He seemed to want her in his grasp; why else would he have wrapped his claws around her arm? Linkali felt Navi come to roost on her uninjured shoulder, pressing close to the girl in comfort.

The young Hylian was sorely tempted to reach for the pouch of Medallions, because now she had the perfect opportunity to break this Sage's seal—it would be childishly easy to press the Medallion to his talon now and have one with it. As much as she might have wanted to, though, she couldn't. One hand still gripped the handle of the Hookshot, while the other was occupied keeping her weight upwards and her arm in its socket. Linkali almost wanted to ask Navi to grab the Light Medallion for her, but the longer she contemplated this idea, the worse it seemed. What if the fairy dropped it? If it was lost, then so was all hope for restoring the Master Sword—and for Hyrule. Besides, if Rauru's seal was broken now and he returned to his true form, well…the ground was a long ways off, and Lin doubted that her landing would be very pretty. It was better not to risk it. She resigned herself to that fate, and hung tightly to the owl's talons.

Though Linkali almost wanted to close her eyes and wait for the wild ride to end, she found she could not. Instead, she gawked at the land rushing by underneath her, her eyes wide with amazement. The path up to Zoras' Domain zoomed by swiftly; Kaepora Gaebora swooped close enough to the thundering falls at the end that Linkali could feel the cold spray on her face, then swerved sharply to the right. Those broad, mighty wings carried him and his wide-eyed passengers coasting over the thick trees that marked the Lost Woods and the Kirikiri Forest. The Hylian girl smirked when she saw the Forest Temple through the leaves. (Doubtlessly, that had been the easiest part of her journey, and when things got rough, she often found herself wishing the rest of Hyrule could be so gentle to her.) The corrupted Sage of Light darted like an arrow over the woods, dipping low enough to the treetops that the youth clutching his talons had to draw up her legs to avoid crashing into the branches. _He's playing with me now,_ Lin thought. _He's trying to scare me and toy with me…but he doesn't realize that I've done things that are as dangerous as this, if not more so._

Frankly, the rush she was getting from clinging to this giant owl as he soared and swooped was not entirely unlike the one she got from hillboarding with Bartal. There was an undeniable element of recklessness in both activities, the nerve-wracking potential for injury and even death. If Kaepora Gaebora had hoped to scare Linkali with his fast flying and heart-stopping dives, he was out of luck. If nothing else, he was only exciting her. Briefly, the girl thought of her friend, and knew that if he ever found out she had done this, he would be incredibly jealous.

Once they cleared the forest, the mighty owl closed his wings and dropped claws-first towards the scrubby yellow grass of Hyrule Field. Lin gripped his scaly legs tighter, just barely clamping down on the laughter that threatened to bubble out of her. (If Kaepora Gaebora thought she was enjoying this, he would likely attempt to drop her; not only was there the risk of injuring herself in the fall and losing the Sage she needed to unseal, but it also meant that Linkali's ride would come to an end.) With mere inches to spare between the Hylian youth's feet and the ground, the massive bird spread his wings and pounded the air hard, sending up a cloud of dust from the dry earth below. He screeched loudly as he climbed through the sky, wheeling and swerving sharply as he rose. Lin was jerked around roughly by these brisk turns, but she held on doggedly.

Kaepora Gaebora streaked like a comet through the air. Within minutes, the deep, dried-up crater that had once been known as Lake Hylia came into view. There was little water left in the lake, save for a patch in the center some ten feet deep. (Some referred to the body of water as "Puddle Hylia.") The huge owl started a dive, zooming diagonally downwards toward the last remaining piece of the lake's water. Linkali held on tightly, her eyes blazing with excitement. She dropped lower and lower towards the water, and her feet skimmed through it before the owl carrying her began to rise sharply through the open air.

He followed the shallow river—shallow because its source at Zoras' Fountain was mostly blocked by ice, and water did not flow as easily as it had in the past—through a steep canyon. Lin recognized it instantly; they had entered the Gerudo Valley. Her eyes flicked from left to right at the rough-faced redstone walls that surrounded the three of them. She could feel the thunder of the waterfall at the other end of the valley humming in her breastbone, and she was in awe of its powerful voice. Kaepora Gaebora squawked loudly, as if in defiance of the rumbling of the cataract he was swiftly approaching, and pulled back sharply. Linkali was jerked forward roughly—almost losing her grip on his talons, which tugged a short scream from her throat—and her feet kicked the falls. The force of the tumbling water nearly tore her boots right off of her, but the mighty owl was backpedaling fast enough that Lin's feet were not in the waterfall for long. In her shock, she nearly dropped the Hookshot, and a cold bolt of anxiety fired through her at the thought of losing such a valuable, trusty weapon. She gripped it tighter in desperation.

Kaepora Gaebora winged his way out of the canyon and left the Valley, heading towards Hyrule Field. On his way out, he wove swiftly between the red-brown rock formations that lined the entrance to the Gerudo place. More than once, Linkali was certain that she would wind up slamming face-first into the unforgiving stone, but the corrupted Sage pulled her away with seconds to spare. It seemed that he wanted the pleasure of battering her all to himself, though he was not opposed to trying to shake her up a bit first. He was sadly out of luck on that part, though; Lin was enjoying herself fiercely. She might be the epitome of maturity at first glance, but years of playing with Bartal had giving her a craving for danger and mischief.

It was as they approached the stone wall surrounding the village of Lonran that Kaepora Gaebora's sharp-clawed talons released Lin's left arm. The Hylian held on for just a bit longer until the owl's dive brought her close enough to the ground for her comfort, then let go. She hit the earth with surprising lightness, though the impact still jarred her injured shoulder roughly, and rolled with the force of her fall. Banishing the Hookshot swiftly, she all but jumped to her feet and searched the cloudy sky for the owl. He wheeled over her like a vulture, broad wings rustling slightly in the still afternoon air. "Come on down and fight, you coward!" Linkali taunted. "What, afraid of me? You only think that flight made me shake! I've been in more danger herding goats! You're not an owl—you're nothing but a big, brown Cucco!"

Kaepora Gaebora took her bait, diving towards the girl with a loud, high-pitched shriek. Lin held her ground, drawing her sword in eagerness. The owl zoomed closer, closer, closer…She readied her arm for the blow she was about to deliver, narrowing her dark blue eyes in concentration. He dove too close—she slashed out with a cry, only to feel her blade slice through the empty air. Kaepora Gaebora had spread his wings and shot upwards to the sky, dodging her attack neatly, almost deftly. He circled over her, his blank yellow eyes fixed firmly on her sword. "Was that it?" Linkali shouted up at him. "You really are a coward! Swooping in and sweeping back isn't brave! Fight like you mean it!"

Again, the massive bird screamed down at the youth, his razor-sharp talons spread wide to tear flesh. Lin braced herself for her counterstrike, tightening her grip on the hilt of her sword. Kaepora Gaebora streaked towards her like a feathered comet, screaming loudly as he prepared to strike. He zoomed in close; Linkali gauged the distance and swung with all her might…only to cut the air again as the owl suddenly pumped his wings mid-dive, rising over her head with barely any effort. He swerved through the sky to face her and hissed tauntingly. Linkali checked herself before she could throw down her sword in frustration. Getting angry might keep her from holding anything back, but it would also make her aim wild and her arm unpredictable—two things that she couldn't afford in a fight against a winged foe. She scowled at the corrupted Sage of Light.

The battle continued like this for several minutes. Kaepora Gaebora would come down in a steep dive, and Linkali would lash out at him; each time, the massive owl would evade her assaults. No matter how long she waited to strike, he always seemed to have just enough time to soar away and dodge her blade by the most maddening of degrees. Lin would call him the worst of cowards, taunting him relentlessly until he swooped at her, then swipe with her sword when he came close. The bird might be a coward, but he was an _agile_ coward.

Linkali was starting to grow incredibly frustrated. She would agitate him into diving again and again, because she held tightly to the hope that eventually he would grow too tired to dodge her effectively, and that when that happened, she could strike him down. Not to kill, of course; she just needed to get him down to the ground long enough that she could break his seal. Lin figured that, after distracting him with pain, she could tackle him to the ground and pull out his Medallion. It didn't seem likely that she would be able to pull that off, though. Kaepora Gaebora was simply to nimble; he was always too far away from her blows to land.

_Far away,_ the girl thought suddenly. A pensive frown creased her face lightly. _Wait a minute…I know of something that can hit him from a distance._ She grinned, bringing to mind her encounter the previous night with the Warrior's Spirit, and the technique he had taught her. _The Spin Attack is a devastating technique, useful for hitting enemies at a distance and with great power_, she said to herself, repeating his words in her thoughts. _It won't be easy—not here, where my magic is limited—but it's worth a try!_

She would have to be quick, though. Linkali looked up at the owl gliding in circles overhead and sneered, "You fly like a hatchling! Come on—stop playing games and fight me, you coward!" She kept up a steady stream of jibes until she heard the screech that signaled the start of Kaepora Gaebora's attack. The huge bird was getting harder and harder to provoke, and Lin figured that if she didn't take him down now, he would fly away from the fight in a huff. She settled her body into a stance that practice had made familiar, closing her eyes as she reached for the power inside her. It danced away from her seeking hands flirtatiously; Linkali snuck a glance at the owl speeding down towards her, then shut her eyes even tighter. _Come on, come on…It doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough._ She strained after the fickle magic, begging it to leap into her grasp like it had the night before. Her arm was long enough, her hand wide enough…She caught it! Swiftly, she plied the power into her sword arm, reaching again and again to build it up. The girl heard Navi call out her name as if from a great distance, and her eyes snapped open.

Kaepora Gaebora was less than five feet away from her, and closing the gap quickly. Linkali tensed her right leg for support, whipping her body around the pivot sharply. A thunderous cry poured out from her throat as the gathered magic fell from her blade. The massive owl saw the blue-green shock wave pulsing through the air towards him and tried to backpedal, but he was too slow. The magic wave slammed into him, shoving him against the rock wall of Lonran just like the Spirit's attack had pushed Lin against the mountain's flank in her dream the night before. He hit the wall hard and crumpled in a brown-feathered heap at its foot.

Linkali took no time to answer Navi's question of how she had come to learn the attack. She threw her sword aside, fingers fumbling the drawstrings of the pouch of Medallions at her hip. She managed to pull it open and plunged her hand inside. The girl drew out the Light Medallion and raced toward the stunned owl. Without wasting any time—for she did not know how long she had until he came to himself—she grabbed his uninjured talon with one hand and slammed the yellow, coin-like object against it with her other, holding it there tightly. A few tense seconds ticked past, long enough for Linkali to contemplate the possibility of a case of mistaken identity; then, in a split instant, brilliant white light burst out from the owl's body. Lin stumbled backwards, raising one arm to shield her face from the glare. When the light faded and she lowered her arm, she found herself staring into the eyes of Rauru, the Sage of Light.

The portly man's somewhat stony expression lifted when he saw the youth standing before him, and for a moment, he looked incredibly hopeful. Then, realization struck him, just as it had nearly every other Sage who had gaze at Linkali. His excitement faded slightly, and he nodded. "For a moment, I thought you were someone else," he told her, his voice low and pleasant. Lin shrugged.

"You'd be amazed at how often I've heard that," she replied. "It's the eyes, I'm told." Rauru nodded, looking her up and down for a few moments. His eyes fell on Navi, who had spent most of the recent battle darting between Linkali and the massive owl attacking her and was now relaxing on the girl's shoulder; he nodded a polite greeting to her. Then his gaze shifted to Lin's other shoulder, and he frowned slightly to see the blood that stained her shirt there, a wound cut by his own claws.

"We should get that seen to," he said, nodding at the injury. He held out his hand, and Linkali took it. She closed her eyes and felt her feet leave the ground.


	22. 21: Cards on the Table

Whether the rest of the Sages were making a genuine effort to be polite to Rauru when he arrived, or if they were only doing it to make Linkali feel less awkward, the girl never knew. There was no denying that the edge of aloofness touched Impa and Ruto's demeanors when they spoke to him, and even Saria seemed a bit quiet. Darunia greeted the Sage of Light warmly, but after that, he seemed a little cooler than usual. Rauru seemed to take it all in stride and returned their greetings without any bitterness; either he was unaware of how they felt about him, or he simply didn't let it stand in his way. Ruto was quick to step forward and lay her hands on Lin's shoulder, healing the wound—which had since stopped bleeding—and repairing the fabric around it. After asking for Rauru's wings to carry her over the Haunted Wasteland and receiving a definitive yes (with, as Saria had warned her, some owl-like hooting), the Hylian girl departed from the Sacred Realm.

"You've only got one Sage left to unseal, Lin!" Navi informed her excitedly as the pair touched down on Hyrule Field. Linkali smiled and nodded. "You've done so well in everything—even when things got difficult, you never gave up."

"Don't praise me like it's over, Navi," the girl teased gently. "Remember, I still have to break Nabooru's seal, not to mention…" She paused, remembering that she was very much in the open, and that certain ears might be listening; it was bad enough that she and the fairy were talking about unsealing Sages, but the next part of her sentence could not be spoke aloud. "…what lies at the end," she finished quietly, glancing around. She hated herself for acting like a cringing, King-fearing coward, but it was her safest option. Just because she had survived the trials of the Triforce of Courage thus far did not mean that she was immune to Ganon's power. The Evil King could strike her down right where she stood if he'd wanted to. _It's best to be a little bit quiet about these things,_ she thought. _After all, I don't even have the Master Sword yet. If Ganon challenged me now, he'd kill me without a fight._

The thought traced a shiver down her spine, not unlike the chill she got when she thought about returning to Kokoria Village. She had to go in—she'd been away for too long and needed to see familiar faces again, and also needed supplies for her journey to the Desert Colossus. Something still told her to stay away, for the safety of her mission, but she couldn't hold back any longer. Once Navi was safely hidden away in the folds of her mantle, Linkali started towards the village gates. Behind her, the setting sun stained the low-hanging clouds with bloody orange light.

* * *

Any misgivings about returning home quickly vanished when she stepped through the familiar village gates again. The nostalgic smells of wood smoke and goat-musk filled her lungs, and for a few moments, all the young woman could do was stand and inhale deeply. She heard a call of greeting from Bartal's mother as the dark-haired midwife crossed the common, and waved back happily; she declined the woman's offer for dinner at their home, figuring her parents would want her to eat with her own family after returning from the nine days she'd spent away. Thought of Hatoren and Halvara spurred her homewards, and before long, Linkali was racing through the village, laughing with joy to be home once more.

Her happiness was somewhat short-lived. Her parents did not question what she had been doing away from the village for so long, which made her a little uneasy. They were nothing short of loving, though, which eased some of her hesitance; still, she couldn't help wondering if there was a reason behind their lack of curiosity. She had a half-formed thought in the back of her mind that festered unpleasantly like a sore, but she struggled to keep it from reaching the front of her thoughts.

The thought continued to nag at her as the days went by, inching closer and closer to the front of her mind. When she was out in the village with Bartal one evening, her parents happened to walk past. Linkali watched as their eyes went from her to her male friend; her father's stare took on an uncharacteristically stern edge, and the boy actually cringed away slightly. Lin thought he looked a little guilty, and for several minutes after that meeting, he would not meet her eyes. There were secrets between them, it seemed—and the Hylian girl would have had to be deaf, blind, and an idiot _not_ to see that. It made her uncomfortable; she was having trouble relaxing and enjoying time spent with her closest friend. It felt like a storm was soon to break between Linkali and her parents, and the youth was not looking forward to it in the slightest. She could hold back the unwanted thought no longer; it rolled over her in a sickening wave. _They know. They know._

She told her parents the night before she was set to leave again for the Gerudo Desert, and with their help, she packed her bag and prepared for the journey. They did not ask why she was leaving, or how long she thought the trip might be. Again, their lack of curiosity made her anxious to leave, and thoughts of what would happen to her if what she feared had happened had indeed come to pass kept her up for most of the night.

* * *

"Lin, could you come in here, please?" Halvara called softly from the kitchen as her older daughter laid one hand on the knob of the front door. Linkali balked, her blood turning to ice in her veins and freezing her muscles in place at the sound of those words. It was early in the morning, barely even dawn—neither of her parents should be up yet. The gloved hand touching the doorknob began to tremble slightly. It could be nothing—a simple 'Travel safely' or a wish for a successful outing…but deep down, Lin knew that wasn't going to happen. _They know. They know,_ her heart thudded in her chest. She swallowed hard and turned stiffly away from the door.

"Y—…yes, ma'am," she whispered shakily, walking down the hall into the kitchen. She could feel Navi trembling on her shoulder, and knew that the fairy shared her fears.

The corridor seemed to have stretched to an unreal length, and Linkali felt as if she walked for an eternity to reach its end. There, seated side-by-side at the kitchen table, were her mother and father. No anger touched their faces, and Hatoren motioned calmly for his daughter to take a seat across from them. Lin obeyed, just as she had always obeyed her parents, pulling out the chair on the other side of the table and sitting down in it. She found she could not meet their eyes, and instead began to study the looping patterns of the wood grain on the tabletop. She felt like a prisoner awaiting a death sentence, trapped and unable to fight for her freedom, for she knew all too well what was about to take place.

Though she had promised the Sages and Zelda that nothing would stand in her way, she hadn't counted on her _parents_ placing themselves on the path.

"Lin," her father began, and the deep murmur of his voice wrapped around her like gentle, loving arms, "we've been patient for months now while Aldez has sent you out on errands—alone, without anyone to ensure your safety—but now we understand that you have been lying to us."

At the word _lying_, Linkali flinched slightly, as if it had been a physical blow slung at her. She wanted to protest and say that she hadn't been lying, just not telling them the whole truth…but she stopped herself cold, her stomach giving a sick clench. She had been lying to them right from the start. Lin hadn't been helping the village founder clean up around the house; she'd been at the Kirikiri Forest, crawling through a Temple. She hadn't gone to Lonran the next day, but she _had_ gone to Death Mountain and taken on the patriarch of the Rogon pack. When she hadn't been able to come up with a solid excuse for her disappearances, she had simply told them that Aldez had sent her out. That statement wasn't entirely untrue—because Aldez, or rather, _Zelda_, had charged her with the mission that called on her to leave Kokoria Village for so many days at a time…but it wasn't the _truth_. Surely her parents, who had raised her, loved her, cared for her, endured her recklessness, deserved the _truth_. And when Linkali hadn't been dodging the _truth_ with vague statements, she had been telling them bold-faced lies.

"You've been going out alone into Hyrule, barely half-trained to use even a simple sword," the burly man continued, "and _lying_ to us about it. What would have happened if you'd been injured? No one would have been there to treat you, or protect you; no one would have been able to tell us where you were so that we could send help. If you had been killed, we never would have known." Lin could hear the fear in his voice at the mere thought of such an occurrence, and she felt even guiltier. He'd placed a lot of trust in her, letting one of his cherished daughters roam the dangerous land alone. She'd betrayed his trust by not telling him where she was truly going.

Part of her—she assumed it was the Hero's spirit within her—wanted to voice a protest. _I've gotten stronger,_ she wanted to tell them. _I've learned how to defend myself. I haven't been alone—I've had Navi to guide me, and the Sages to counsel me, and I know when it's right to run away and plan harder for a second try. _Linkali kept these thoughts to herself. It wouldn't do her any favors to start interrupting her parents and arguing now; they might get angry with her, and if that happened, then they would never listen. Besides, another part of her was stabbing her all over with needles of guilt.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, the loudest she could speak. She was shaking more noticeably now, her blue eyes filled to the brim with sadness and shame. It had felt so right, going out into the world for herself and breaking the Sages' seals. She'd even gotten to travel, to see sights that she was fairly sure no one else in her home village had ever seen before, like the towering heights of Death Mountain up close, or the dense foliage of the Lost Woods, or the furious cascade of the waterfall in the Gerudo Valley. While she had been out in the field, it had all felt so incredibly right; now, however, it felt horribly, horribly wrong.

"Lin, we've been worried sick about you," Halvara put in, reaching out to take her child's trembling hand in her own. "We were willing to let you continue because we thought it was something you were doing to help old Aldez. But when we found out that you'd been lying to us…Oh, Lin." She shook her head as her voice broke, and the Hylian girl felt another wave of guilt crash over her. "Just stay…Stay home. We all miss you, and Hyrule is a dangerous place; it's not somewhere a young woman should be wandering alone. You don't need to go out anymore. Just stay here with us."

With Navi's outrage a fiery weight on her shoulder and her own bleak shock at those last words burning in her belly, the young Hylian woman snapped her eyes up from the table. They were round with disbelief; she shook her head, her mouth hanging open. "N—no!" she stammered quietly. "I can't—I have to…to…" She winced a little. Zelda had made her swear to keep the mission a secret. Linkali had already broken that promise with Bartal, and now it seemed like she was going to have to break it with her parents as well. "Oh, Din, I don't even know where to begin with this, but I—"

"We've heard," Hatoren said firmly, and a rare gleam of severity entered his blue gaze. Lin shut her mouth swiftly, leaning back a little in her seat as if to cringe away from the man. "Bartal told us." Fury at her friend's betrayal flared up in the girl's eyes. She had had a feeling the boy had blabbed, but she'd been praying that it was not so. "Don't be angry with him. He was reluctant to tell us at first—said that you had made him swear to secrecy."

"What did you do to make him tell you?" Linkali asked breathlessly, the anger in her eyes changing over to pure, heart-stopping fear. Her father offered her a calming smile.

"We asked. Persistently," he responded. "He was worried about your safety, and it was clear that we were, too. After being asked to tell us what he knew enough times, Bartal finally broke down and told us everything. No threats were made, I assure you."

_I knew it was a bad idea to let him in on this,_ Navi muttered in the back of Linkali's mind, though there was no triumph in her voice. She seemed to realize that the last thing her Hylian partner needed right now was an "I told you so." In fact, she almost sounded…regretful. As if she blamed herself for not stopping Lin from telling their secrets to the boy.

"So he told you…why I've been going out," Linkali murmured dully. She glanced up at her parents in time to see them nod briefly. "Then you know…"

"We know what Aldez led you to think," her father replied. Disbelief was heavy in his voice. "Lin, did you honestly believe that? That a wonderfully intelligent girl like you could carry the spirit of such a _fool_ as the Hero of Time? That the mystical Triforce of Courage—the very essence of the Goddess Farore—would adhere to a young woman with no skills in combat? I'm not saying you're a coward, but rather that it seems unlikely that such a power would come to you, or to anyone in Hyrule, honestly."

"But…I've _seen_ it," Lin insisted, though she sounded a little timid and uncertain. "When I was with Ze—with Al—when I was with _her_, and we put our hands together, I _saw_ it, Dad." She gently removed her right hand from her mother's warm grasp and traced the shape of the Triforce shakily on the back of her left. "It was right there, clear as day…The lower-right piece, Courage—it was brighter than the other two."

"There is no accounting for things that you may have thought you saw," Hatoren said gravely. "It could have been any of a number of things—an illusive spell, clever tricks of lighting…she might have slipped something into whatever she gave you to drink that would cause you to see whatever she told you to see."

"Zelda would never do anything like that!" Linkali burst out as she slammed her hands down hard on the table, unable to control herself. Both parents fixed her with a sharp stare, and she fell silent, even cringing a little.

"The woman's name is _Aldez_," Halvara stressed, somewhat pointedly. "Despite what she may have told you to the contrary. Lin, do you honestly think that the Evil King would have allowed Princess Zelda to escape his grasp? She likely fled Hyrule to escape King Ganon, and died in some other land. Even though we have no records of her ever dying, it's impossible to believe that she would willingly return to a place that held such danger for her." She paused. "Besides, if Princess Zelda were indeed alive, she would be close to one-hundred and seventy years old."

" 'Aldez' _is_ that old," the girl murmured rebelliously. Hatoren shook his head.

"Aldez is not from Hyrule, though," he informed her. Linkali reminded herself what Zelda had told her, that after recovering from the shock of the Hero of Time's death, she had taken on the identity of a mute stranger. "She is from a province on the edge of the land, and came here the same year the Hero was killed." He sighed as his daughter bowed her head, resting a hand comfortingly atop her shaking one. "I know…it hurts to realize that someone you bonded so closely with has been deceiving you all along." He glanced at his wife as if to say, _How do you think _we_ feel?_

Lin had not lowered her head in defeat; she had done so to hide the disbelief, pain, and outright rage that were boiling in her blue eyes. Her whole body was shaking as if with fever-chills, and she felt as if she was about to cry. _Zelda isn't lying,_ she insisted, though the words never crossed her lips. _She didn't drug me, she didn't deceive me; she's done nothing but support me and help me through this whole quest! It's real—all of it! And if it isn't, well…I must be the bravest Hylian born in over a century and a half, because I've done things that would make half of the people in this village piss themselves with fright!_

"Lin, we will not let you leave this house," her mother declared. "Not today, not tomorrow…not until this stupid notion that you're out to save Hyrule has left your head."

"It's…it's not a stupid notion," whispered Lin, her head still bowed. "Mom, Dad…It's all true, I know it is. Bartal told you that I've been going out to break the seals of the legendary Six Sages…and I have." She started to reach for the pouch of Medallions to dump her last remaining piece of proof on the tabletop…only to hesitate as a jolt of sickening realization struck her. She'd banished the Spirit Medallion earlier; unless she took her hand out from under her father's—and judging by the way he held it, that wasn't likely to happen—she could not show them. The small display of magic from summoning the item might make them intrigued, but it might also make them even more suspicious of her. For all she knew, they might think she was a monster in clever disguise, for no Hylian could use magic but some monsters could. It pained her to have to admit defeat in that one area, but Linkali didn't see another option. She sighed, and her head dropped a little lower. Navi, who seemed to have sensed what she was attempting to do, pressed her cheek against the girl's neck in tender consolation, the most she could really do.

"We're worried about you," her mother continued softly. "We don't think it's right for you to be charging around the field alone, especially not while you're spouting nonsense about being the Hero of Time in a second coming and saying how you want to take on King Ganon." A tight edge of worry made her voice crack. "Lin, if he gets wind that you've said things like that, he won't care if you've gone mad or been misled. He'll…he'll _kill_ you." She shivered, resting a hand over her heart at the thought of her daughter's life in such direct peril. "It's dangerous…and you don't seem to realize just how deeply in trouble you could place yourself."

Linkali's eyes squeezed shut tightly. She wanted to tell them that they were wrong. She wasn't the Hero of Time in second coming; she merely carried a piece of his fighting spirit—his courage, not his foolishness. She wasn't going around declaring it at the top of her lungs, either. When Zelda had told her, it had been in writing, in a locked house with the shades drawn; when Lin had told Bartal, it had been in a whisper while they were sitting in the belly of an underground well.

But she couldn't bring herself to say these things. She could hear the raw hurt in her parents' voices, sense the worry that charged the air. She felt terrible for putting them through this, for keeping secrets and lying, even when her mission had been for the greater good and for Hyrule's freedom from Ganon's reign. Linkali knew she had disappointed them, and brought them more shame than pride. Tears choked her throat, but her eyes remained dry, and she was shaking like a leaf. Hot shame and cold nervousness washed over her in alternating waves, making her feel positively ill; her breathing was quivery and shallow. The girl wanted nothing more than to open her eyes and see Navi hovering over her, to hear the fairy's tiny voice telling her that she had been thrashing and moaning in her sleep as if in the throes of a terrible nightmare, to be consoled and encouraged to continue on her quest.

Oh, but her quest had _hurt_ her parents to much…

Linkali lifted her eyes and scanned the worried looks on their faces. They looked older than she last remembered—not drastically so, but definitely noticeable—as if fear for their child's safety had aged them cruelly. Halvara's hair had more gray to it and looked duller than Lin recalled; Hatoren's muscular frame seemed to have diminished. Both adults seemed to have more lines on their faces than she remembered seeing. Had they really been so anxious for her safe return? The youth dropped her eyes shamefully, feeling the tightness in her throat build even more. She felt worse about herself than she had after her first fight with Imparo. Then, she had felt as if she'd failed a large number of total strangers; here, she felt as if she had failed the two people who had invested the most time, energy, emotion, and sanity into her safety and happiness. Linkali hated herself at that moment, more than she had ever hated anything before in her life. More than she had hated the broken ankle that had kept her from hillboarding for two solid months last year, more than she hated the booming thunder than made her flinch and shiver with fear, more than she hated any monster that had ever come at her with intent to kill her.

Lin hated herself for all that she had done to the two people who loved her most in this world. Though she did not hate her quest, she hated the things it had forced her to do—lying to her parents, making them worry so deeply, disturbing their lives without so much as a brief thought. The Hylian youth felt so conflicted and torn and crushed and so many other things that it was impossible to name them all. Part of her wanted to give up, if only so that she could stop hurting her parents so deeply. Hyrule needed her, but she wondered if the price—destroying her mother and father with fear and worry for their oldest child—was too high.

"We want you to be safe," Hatoren murmured, giving his daughter's hand a loving squeeze. "We don't want you blindly going off into danger and putting your life at risk. If you want to continue exploring Hyrule, then perhaps we can negotiate terms for that, but…" His voice grew sterner than Lin had ever heard. "…we will not have you going off on this fool's quest. It ends now; you will do no further. You are finished with your fantasies and your quests. You will act like the serious young woman we raised you to be." He hesitated. "Are you listening to me, Linkali?"

To hear her full name was the crushing blow for Lin. Her mother might use it from time to time when she was frustrated with her child, but Hatoren rarely, if ever, called the young woman by her full name. It was something he reserved for the most serious of times, and to hear it signaled that he would not be disobeyed. Linkali took a deep breath, releasing it in a quiet sigh; though it destroyed her spirit and felt like a kick to the stomach, she nodded her head. Her blue eyes were blank with defeat. "I'm listening," she said quietly. Her voice was choked with unshed tears. "And I'll do what you say, Dad." She looked up so that he could see the honesty in her gaze. The man looked at his wife and nodded; they turned back and offered their older daughter comforting smiles.

"It hurts, but you'll thank us for this, Lin," he mother said sweetly. "You'll be much safer and happier if you give up this foolish delusion now and try to live normally like the rest of us." Feeling a little relieved to see how relaxed her parents were, Linkali nodded and attempted a smile.

The tentative grin faded out swiftly when she felt Navi zip out from underneath her mantle, and heard the soft buzzing of the fairy's gossamer wings as she fled the room unseen.

While her parents busied themselves with putting together a large breakfast to celebrate the return of Linkali's common sense, the youth sat numbly at the table, sickened and shocked. The culmination of the past twenty minutes suddenly descended over her like a falling boulder. What had she done? What had she _done_?

Her heart thudded hollowly against her breastbone, a lonely, empty beat. Her partner had abandoned her, just as carelessly as Lin had abandoned her quest. She wanted to chase after the fairy and beg Navi's forgiveness; she hadn't _wanted_ to give in, but her parents…she couldn't keep hurting them like this. She loved her blue little friend, but she also loved them. She hated herself for giving up on her mission, but she also loathed the way she had lied to the very people who had raised her.

As much as she wanted to run after her fleeing friend, the girl's backside remained in the chair. Somehow, she didn't feel as if she deserved a friend like Navi. Navi had always been there for her, no matter what. The stocky fairy had been her partner through thick and thin in the months they had been together, encouraging her, caring for her, helping her solve problems and fulfill her destiny. There would be no destiny now. Even if Linkali had the desire or willpower to go against her parents' wishes, she didn't want to continue without Navi by her side. It would be like asking her to go hillboarding or pull pranks without Bartal; feasibly, it _could_ be done, but for Lin, it felt like an impossibility. Sorrowful as she was, though, Linkali was not bitter that Navi had left her. The fairy deserved better. Lin, who had so casually given up on everything she had worked so hard to achieve these past few months, wasn't worthy of such a dedicated, devoted partner.

The world seemed lost on the Hylian youth; her thoughts were far from the kitchen. What would she tell the Sages? How could she possibly tell them that she had given up? What would they do? Saria would be heartbroken—Darunia wouldn't be able to look her in the eye—Ruto would turn away in resentment—Impa would sigh hopelessly and shake her head. Linkali couldn't bring herself to face them, to tell them that she had abandoned her quest and left her homeland in the hands of its brutal King. She didn't want to see them hurting from her betrayal. Her heart wouldn't be able to take it. She had lost Navi, she would lose her Sage friends…What would _Zelda_ think? Lin was sure her parents would find some way to keep her as far away from the old woman as possible, but that didn't meant that they wouldn't eventually cross paths. Zelda would know what had happened; she would see the defeat and remorse in the girl's blue eyes.

Linkali had sacrificed so much with her last spoken sentence, her heart was sick to think of it. Navi's flight had crushed her. She wasn't sure if she would ever be able to rise from the table. She didn't blame the fairy for leaving her. After all, Lin had just abandoned her destiny, the fate that she had fought fiercely to bring to fruition, putting her own life in danger more than once. The girl had abandoned her purpose for living, betrayed the spirit of Courage, turned away from the will of the Goddesses. It was no wonder Navi had fled. But knowing that didn't make it any easier to take.

While she sat, her throat tight with unshed tears, Linkali barely heard a knock at the front door. For nearly twenty minutes, she had sat at the kitchen table, thinking of all that she had given up to make her parents happier. The sound was insignificant; she hardly noticed it or the gentle pat on the shoulder her mother gave her as the Hylian woman swept past. "Smile, Lin," she whispered tenderly. Lin wasn't sure she could ever smile again. Her eyes were blank, but pain and an overwhelming sadness lurked behind their unfeeling stare. A quivering sigh escaped her, and she dropped her head even lower.

"A-Aldez," Halvara stammered in surprise from the front hallway. Linkali's head snapped up, the emotionless glaze vanishing in a heartbeat; that name had been the _last _sound she's expected to hear. She heard a familiar fizzing noise; a moment later, she felt the tickle of thin wings on her neck. A gentle, familiar weight descended on her shoulder, warming a patch beneath her mantle. "G-good morning…I…I didn't expect you to be knocking at this hour."

"I brought Zelda," Navi whispered in Lin's pointed ear; the edge of mischief in her voice nearly made the girl burst into grateful tears. Could she really be here, speaking without any trace of regret, anger, or hurt in her voice? "Maybe she'll be able to convince your parents." Linkali turned to look at the fairy with wide, disbelieving eyes; she scarcely believed that her partner had returned to her without any sort of grudge or hard feelings. Navi gasped quietly at the look on the girl's face, the unshed tears in her dark blue eyes, drawing back in shock. "Lin…you didn't think I'd…_left_ you, did you?" she asked, stroking the youth's cheek tenderly. She sounded just as saddened by the notion as Lin had been. A gentle smile spread across her round face. "No…no…I went to get help. You're my partner…I'd never abandon you, especially not when you need someone by your side. Don't _ever_ think I'd abandon you."

"Would you…like to come in and join us for breakfast?" Halvara asked hesitantly from the doorway, speaking to the unseen Hylian. "I know it's a bit early in the morning, but…Oh, please do…it would be an honor." Somehow, she sounded less than honored to have the village founder in her home at that moment. "Tor, Aldez will be joining us for breakfast."

Linkali looked over as Zelda entered the kitchen, and stared pleadingly at her like an accused prisoner looks at the witness whose testimony will prove their innocence. _Help me!_ she wanted to sob. Zelda's calm, blue eyes fell to the trembling youth, and a look of deep concern crossed her face; she could see the raw fear, uncertainty, and distress in Lin's eyes. She made her way straight to her side, resting a hand on the girl's upper arm. Linkali rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around the mute elder tightly, shivering and shaking, weak with relief. Zelda held her close, embracing the young woman and pressing her to her warm heart. Lin inhaled deeply, taking in the smoky, mysterious scent of incense that radiated faintly from the old woman's clothing. The youth felt the familiar buzz begin in her left hand, and knew that no matter what her parents thought, she still carried the Triforce of Courage. The familiar, tingling purr in her blood calmed her down far more than any spoken words ever could. She smiled her first genuine grin all morning and relaxed; the tremors that wracked her body steadily faded away.

Zelda stepped back, cupping the young Hylian's cheek tenderly in her palm. Her ocean-deep eyes spoke a silent promise to the girl that they would make it through this together. Linkali nodded, and the familiar stubborn glint came back to her gaze. The former monarch smiled, took Lin's left hand in both of hers, and enfolded it gently; the resonating pieces of the Triforce filled both of their bodies with a mystical, powerful thrumming, strengthening their hearts. After a few minutes, Zelda released Lin's hand gently and took a step back.

Linkali looked the woman over quickly, a little startled. Though you had to look closely to see it, it was apparent that Navi had actually wakened the old Hylian in order to get her over here. Zelda's gray-blonde hair was pulled into its normal braid, but it was not as impeccably straight as it always was and looked somewhat hastily done. Her blue eyes were still slightly bleary with sleep, and while not dirty, her face had clearly not been washed that morning. The woman's clothing seemed to have been pulled on rather swiftly as well; Lin could see a seam on the front of her white skirt that probably belonged on the side of the garment. None of this seemed to bother Zelda, though. She simply seemed grateful to have made it out of bed and to her young friend's side in her time of need. Linkali was glad to have her there, perfectly kempt or not. She watched the old woman reach into the bag she had brought, and saw her remove a very thick stack of blank paper from the satchel.

"Please, sit down, Aldez," Halvara invited, pulling out a chair for the old woman. Zelda accepted the seat with a gentle smile, nodding her thanks as she set the paper down on the table. She reached back into her bag and drew out her fine quill pen. She looked into the bag again, smiling somewhat sheepishly. "Oh…Lin, would you run and get Aldez some ink?"

Linkali was hesitant to leave the village founder's side; part of her almost didn't trust her parents around Zelda. But the look in the old woman's eyes said that she wasn't worried, and Lin figured that if Zelda was calm, she should be too. She nodded obediently and hurried off, returning a few moments later with a jar of ink. She laid it down on the table beside Zelda's paper and received a grateful nod for her service.

_Halvara,_ Zelda began to write, glancing at Linkali's mother hovering over her shoulder, _forgive me for intruding this morning. I do not wish to impose, but I believe that there is a small number of discrepancies between what you believe your daughter is doing and what is actually happening, and I feel it would be in the best interest of all if they were laid to rest._

The Hylian woman was silent as she read all of this, her eyes flicking from elder to youth in confusion. After a few moments, she nodded. "Hatoren, I think you should come in here," she said. The burly man obeyed the summons, glancing over what Zelda had written. He, too, hesitated before nodding. The two of them settled down at the table across from the others.

_The first inaccuracy I would like to correct is the belief that Lin has been traveling alone,_ Zelda wrote calmly, turning the page when she finished that sentence so they could read. _It would bring me great pleasure to be able to introduce her companion, but I believe it would be best if she were to introduce herself._ While Linkali's parents read that most recent statement, Zelda nodded at the girl. Lin smiled and tapped her shoulder lightly.

"Navi…came out," she whispered. The fairy twitched, startled to be directly addressed aloud when she had been trying to hide her presence from other Hylians for so long now; regardless, she slipped out of the wide collar of Linkali's mantle, bobbing over the table lightly. The two older Hylians stared.

"Wh…What is that?" Hatoren asked. Navi dimmed her light and gently settled down on the tabletop so that all could see her. The stocky fairy clasped her hands in front of her politely, nodding her head in greeting.

"To answer your question of 'what', she's a fairy from the Kirikiri Forest," Lin replied. "Now, to answer the question of 'who'…" She smiled at her partner, motioning for the fairy to introduce herself. Navi dropped a small bow at the girl's parents.

"My name is Navi," she said sweetly. "As Lin said, I am a fairy from the Forest, and I have been traveling with your daughter as her partner for nearly all of her journey thus far. She found me in distress in the Lost Woods and saved my life, and I have been accompanying and assisting her ever since." She paused, grinning. "And I do have credentials; your daughter is not the first young person I have guided and protected. In his day, I was also partnered with the Hero of Time."

" 'Credentials'?" Linkali echoed, a look of wry amusement crossing her face. Navi turned to acknowledge her, shrugging somewhat sheepishly.

"It never hurts to be experienced," she pointed out mildly. Turning back to the speechless Hatoren and Halvara, she continued, "It's been a great pleasure to work with Lin. You've brought her up very well; she is both intelligent and polite, and very self-confident, too. I am proud to be the partner of such a Hylian."

_Lin and Navi have, as Navi said, been traveling together for nearly the entire journey,_ Zelda inscribed dutifully. _Looking at them now, I do believe they have bonded rather closely. Navi is—as the result of her previous partnership with the late Hero—very knowledgeable about places and monsters in Hyrule, and I have no reason to doubt that her counsel has been very helpful in Lin's quest._ Linkali nodded in confirmation. _Though they may be small, Lin is in excellent hands in Navi's care._

" 'Quest'," Halvara repeated, pointing to the word. Zelda nodded. "You've been sending our daughter out, telling her that she's the Hero of Time reborn—something most would consider insulting." And the glint in her brown eyes suggested that _she_ was among those who took offense.

_That is another discrepancy I wish to settle. Lin is not the Hero reborn, or in a second coming; the piece of his spirit that chose him as the heir of the Master Sword resides within her. She is, despite that, very much her own person. _Zelda paused, considering the accusation so recently brought against her. _As you say, I __have__ been sending her out, though I do not relish placing such a dear youth in danger. However, I believe that Lin is much stronger than you think. When I first sent her out a few months ago, she had a pouch of six Medallions._ At this, she turned to Lin. The girl held her hands under the table while she summoned the Spirit Medallion, then went through the motions of "pulling it out" to cover the fact that she had used magic. She set it on the table. Zelda blinked at it in surprise for a few moments.

"Sorry, I…never got around to telling you but I…broke Rauru's seal a few days ago," Linkali informed her sheepishly. Zelda smiled calmly, nodding.

_I was expecting to see two Medallions remaining; she surprised me by only pulling out one,_ the former monarch explained. _She has been rather busy, it seems. Regardless, let that stand as testament to her hard work and determination. In the past few months_

Linkali rested her hand over Zelda's gently, cutting the old woman off. "Please…can I tell them?" she asked. The mute elder smiled benevolently, nodding her head calmly as if to say _The story is yours to tell, after all_. She set down her quill and folded her hands on the table, motioning briefly for the girl to speak. Lin took a deep breath, and began.

She started with her sojourn into the Forest, how she had met Navi and been mistaken for the Hero at first—because of her eyes, she explained as the fairy nodded somewhat sadly. She described their exploration into the Forest Temple, and their meeting with the corrupted Sage of Forest, a tiny Kirikiri called Sri. The tale then turned to Death Mountain—her "trip to Lonran"—where she had been unable to endure the heat of the Rogon Caverns, and been forced to seek out special heat-resistant clothing. She told them about her skirmishes with the Rogons, how she had found the legendary Megaton Hammer that had saved her life, and her battle against the monsters' own leader, Darrun. (She even summoned the Megaton Hammer under the table and lifted it up for them to see, before narrowly avoiding dropping it in her own lap; instead, she set it down somewhat gently on the floor, where Russie approached to sniff the metal head of the weapon curiously.) Her story turned to the Ice Caverns, and how she had nearly frozen to death a number of times before finding the maddened Zora who was the former Sage of Water, Ruto, and how she had thrown the Water Medallion at the finned woman's head to break the seal.

That was where the amusing stories seemed to end. Linkali knew that this was her chance to be totally honest with her parents, to make up for all the lies she had been telling them. They had asked; they would know in full. Without flinching, she described her first battle against the corrupted Shadow Sage, Imparo, and how the multiplying beast had nearly slaughtered her; she spared them no detail, wanting to lay everything out on the table for them. Her voice grew somewhat rough as she told them of her second battle, and how the shadow beast had nearly destroyed her again, and how her sharp reflexes had saved her in the end when she'd finally gotten the monster in close enough to slap the Medallion to its chest. She thought her father looked as if he would soon faint when she told of the injuries she had suffered in the fight; all the color had drained from his face, and his eyes were wide with shock. Lin continued, telling them about her journey into the Haunted Wasteland that had nearly ended in her dying of thirst, and how that failure had prompted her to see the advice of the Sages. Her battle against Kaepora Gaebora was described in a somewhat abbreviated manner, despite her former resolution to hide nothing; after seeing the looks on her parents' faces when she described the ride the corrupted Sage of Light had taken her on, she thought it best not to excite them any further.

"…And that's it," she concluded, feeling a little drained. "That's how I've been spending the past few months of my life—Navi can vouch for me if you have any doubts." The blue fairy nodded. Hatoren was the first to move, surprisingly. He cleared his throat.

"You say you've done all these things, and that you've done them to repair the legendary Blade of Evil's Bane so that you can fight against King Ganon," he said softly. Linkali nodded. "But Lin…what makes you think that you will be able to handle such a sword?" He shook his head. "Perhaps you have enough _skill_, but…" The broad-shouldered man held his hands up in confusion.

Linkali glanced over at Zelda, a mischievous smile working its way across her face. The old woman caught on instantly, nodding once in agreement. "I believe I had the same doubts in the beginning," she replied, "and this is what helped me to believe in myself." She started pulling at her gauntlet; Zelda tugged at her own white glove. The two Hylians bared their hands—Lin her left, Zelda her right—and placed them side-by-side on the table. In the low light of the morning, the golden shape of the Triforce blossomed into view, drawing low gasps from Hatoren and Halvara. The golden radiance seemed to fill the small room, and the low hum of the Goddesses' power was audible if you knew what to listen for. There was no denying that between the luminous marks on the back of the two women's hands and the orange Medallion sitting on the table near them, something mystical was there. Linkali glanced at the former monarch, grinning a little despite the seriousness of the situation. Zelda began to write.

_I know that for many, many years, I have gone under the name of Aldez,_ she told them, _but truly, as Lin has told you, my name is Zelda._ To help, she wrote ZELDA and ALDEZ one under the other and connected the letters, A to A, L to L, and so on, so that the anagram was more apparent._ I am the bearer—as I am sure you see—of the Triforce of Wisdom, and the former Princess of Hyrule._ She smiled apologetically. _I am sorry for having deceived you, and all of the people of this village, for so many years, but it was because I was waiting for the Triforce of Courage to choose a worthy bearer, and for that bearer to come of age. Your daughter is that bearer, and I believe that she has the courage and determination and strength to bring Ganon down once and for all._

Hatoren rose to his feet shakily, his worry-wrinkled face looking bizarrely soft in the gentle glow of the two Triforce marks. "Vantal must know," he murmured. Linkali looked up sharply. Vantal, the leader of HyReCo? Her father seemed to think the matter was serious enough to involve the Coalition; it seemed as if Zelda felt the same way, judging by the knowing glimmer in her eyes. Halvara also looked up curiously.

"Elder Vantal?" she repeated in confusion. "Tor, why not Gotari—he is the village leader, after all."

"Yes, but Vantal—Vantal has more _sway_ in matters of this magnitude," Hatoren replied uneasily. Linkali also shared his discomfort. Of course, if HyReCo didn't exist—as her mother and Zelda (though the elder's expression was not one of confusion) surely believed—then the village leader should be the one to know that two pieces of the Triforce resided in Kokoria; however, Vantal, as leader of the Resistance, would be more interested in and be able to do more with anything that could be used against the Evil King.

"No, he doesn't. Vantal is an elder. While he is respected, _Gotari_ has the final say in matters. Besides, it's his village; he has the right to know what's going on here."

Hatoren looked over at his daughter as if asking her to come to his rescue. Lin was doing her best to hold the secret in. A lot of things had fallen apart this morning, but HyReCo (which had been a secret for a century and a half) should not be one of them. "Vantal likely has a greater understanding of something like this," the girl offered. Her mother frowned, peering closely at her daughter's eyes. Linkali released her breath in a soft sigh, knowing that HyReCo was probably as good as exposed.

"But _Gotari_ is the one who should be able to actually do something about it," Halvara insisted. "Right?" Looking back at her husband, she declared, "Lin isn't telling me the whole truth—that much I can see in her eyes." Linkali flinched guiltily, flashing her father an apologetic look. "And I don't think you are either. Hatoren, tell me why you think Vantal should be the one to know about this."

The Hylian man sighed long, covering his face with his massive hands. He held this position for a few moments before lowering his hands. "Halvara," he whispered pleadingly, taking his wife's hands into his own, "you know that as your husband, I am the man of this household; by old Kokorian law, that entitles me to put my will over yours whenever I choose, unless my will is destructive or harmful to others." Halvara nodded. "But please…in the twenty years that you and I have been wed, have I ever done so, even once?"

"No," Halvara replied. Hatoren closed his eyes tightly.

"It sickens me to do it now, but I have no choice," he said sadly. Opening his eyes, he continued in a very serious voice, "You will not question me this once. I will explain if I am permitted to later, but just now, just this once, you may not question my actions or my reasons." Halvara drew back slightly. The man bowed his head. "I hate myself for doing this to you, I really do—but I have no choice. Just this once, please, Halvara…"

The woman lifted his chin gently and smiled. "Tor, if it really is that important to you, then I will obey," she told him. "I do hope you can tell me later what this is about, but I won't argue. You're right; you've never done this before, and if the situation is such that you must put your will over mine, then I will not argue today." She kissed his forehead, then gave a wry grin and a glance at her daughter. "Now, off you go, my two favorite conspirators—go make whatever dastardly plots you need to make. I'll just sit here oblivious." She looked across the table, smiling at the village founder. "Will you join me?"

"Actually, Al—Princess, um," Hatoren stammered, "I mean—Her Highness, I think, should come with us." Linkali nodded. The old Hylian dipped her head in a gesture of acceptance.

_Very well. But please, do not refer to me as "Princess" or any similar address. They are titles I no longer hold—in this day and age, there is no Royal Family, only the memory of one. My given name is Zelda; I would prefer it if you used that to address me._ She smiled. _Much like your daughter insists on being called "Lin."_

After a few moments of preparation (Linkali amazed her parents by not only being able to lift the Megaton Hammer from the floor, but also by banishing it; "I'll explain it all later," she told them calmly), the three Hylians set off into the village to find Vantal, and hopefully, the rest of HyReCo.

* * *

Linkali wasn't totally sure how Vantal managed to assemble the entirety of HyReCo on such short notice, or even during the daytime. She knew that there was protocol for gathering the Coalition for an emergency meeting, and she knew that that was what Vantal had done…but what she did _not_ know was exactly how it had happened. It was somewhat like normal meetings, but instead of knowing details of her own arrival and those of the members coming before and after her, she only knew how _she_ was supposed to get to the meeting place.

When the word got out that HyReCo had an urgent meeting, Lin's task was to find Bartal (or, depending on who got the message first, it could be Bartal's task to find Lin) and tell him that she wanted to explore the woods with him. Their path through the forest behind Kokoria Village was convoluted and led through many streams and stretches of lifeless, open ground that would hopefully shake off and deter any trackers they might pick up. After a good mile or so of rambling and crawling through the mists and vegetation, the two Hylians' feet would lead them towards the back entrance of the graveyard. They would wait there until the coast was as clear as possible, then make their way into the secret chute beneath the moveable gravestone.

It was around noon when she found herself in the secret room underneath the Graveyard, surrounded by the other members. She stood with her father and Zelda at the Coalition Leader's side. As she looked around at the faces of the others, Linkali ran through her most recent meeting with old Vantal. After a brief summarization of what had happened in his kitchen earlier that morning, Hatoren had told his daughter and Zelda to bare their hands and show them to the elder. The look on the wizened old man's face had not been one of surprise; quite the contrary, he seemed to have been expecting something like this to happen, and his expression had been one of great hope, almost relief. Lin and her father had exchanged curious glances at this unforeseen reaction, and their comprehension had not increased when Vantal had murmured softly, "Finally…the time has come."

Now that she was really thinking about it, Linkali realized that Zelda—who had known that Lin carried the Triforce of Courage since before the girl had even been born—had told Vantal everything she feasibly could. She could come up with no better explanation. Why else would he seem to expect the Triforce of Courage in his own village? Why would he say that the time had come? The leader of HyReCo began the meeting, but the young woman's thoughts were worlds away. It made sense to think that the two old Hylians had been in cahoots with each other. Zelda would have knowledge of the inside of Ganon's castle—and Vantal could have used that information to create the numerous maps hung up in the meeting room. And what of the old man's ability to find the fatal flaw in every plan put forth by the Coalition? Could it be that he used his deeper understandings of the Evil King's castle and its dangers to home in on whatever element would sink the plan? It seemed plausible; after all, the man _did_ seem to have a rather uncanny knowledge base when it came to King Ganon.

Just how much did Vantal know?

Linkali was jostled out of her thoughts when she heard her father say her name softly. She blinked at him in confusion for a few moments, totally lost and confused; even now, hours after the fact, she was still a little dazed and distracted from her talk with her parents earlier that morning. "It's not like you to daydream, Lin," he murmured. "Pay attention—Gotari just asked to see your hand to see if this is true."

Looking over at Zelda, Lin saw that the old woman had her right hand bared, and was looking over at her somewhat expectantly. Hastily, the youth tugged off her own glove and placed her pale-skinned hand alongside her elder friend's. The familiar tingle that had been crawling up and down the back of her hand all morning blossomed steadily into the wondrous, mystical hum of two pieces of the golden Triforce resonating with each other, and golden light shone out from the backs of the two Hylians' hands. Looking at the village leader, Linkali saw him nodding with approval and smiling gently at the sight.

The other members of HyReCo showed decidedly mixed reactions. Some were scornful, mistrust for anything that could be traced back to the failure of the Hero of Time evident in their suspicious stares. Others looked hopeful, or simply awed by the sacred marks shining in their midst. A few were shaking their heads in disbelief. Linkali's blue eyes sought out Bartal in the crowd, and locked onto his amber. The boy was grinning; he looked practically enthralled to see his friend standing at the front of the Coalition with the mark of her courage burning for all to see. Lin found herself smiling a little as well, heartened by her old friend's confidence in her. That simple reassurance, coupled with the heartening hum of Goddess-given courage radiating through her body, brought the all-too-familiar stubborn glimmer back into her eyes.

"All that has been said so far is true," Linkali said, her confident voice carrying to the ears of all those packed together in the underground room. "I _do_ carry a piece of the Hero of Time's spirit, I _am_ the bearer of the Triforce of Courage, and I _am_ going to repair the Master Sword and take a stand against the Evil King." She saw a few members exchange skeptical looks; whether they didn't believe that a Hylian could say such things, or didn't believe that she was capable, Lin didn't know. She didn't really care too much, either. This was her cause, her purpose, her destiny. She'd resented it until it didn't make sense to deny it any longer, and had accepted it. A couple nonbelievers—or even a Coalition _full_ of them—would not stand in her way. Behind Linkali's back, Vantal and Zelda exchanged a very meaningful look, clearly approving of how confident she seemed in her ability to carry out her mission.

"HyReCo will stand behind you," the Coalition leader promised, startling the young woman. She turned to look over at him, surprise evident in her eyes. Vantal gave her a rather cheeky wink before turning his attention back to the men and women standing around in front of him. "Unless there is any dissent?"

Linkali hadn't missed the handful of people who had turned to their neighbors with doubt on their faces, but out of however many there were, none spoke out. The young warrior had the support of two very influential men—Vantal and Gotari—and the backing of the village founder herself. They would not protest, but some part of Lin deeply and uneasily wished that they _would_. She wasn't totally sure what Vantal had meant when he'd said that all of HyReCo would be at her back, but her instinct told her that when the day came that she faced down Ganon, she would not be alone. She looked around at all the faces in the dimly-lit room, familiar faces that she knew so well, and couldn't quite keep a chilly dart from speeding through her. Their support was not unwanted, but the Hylian youth wasn't sure they fully understood what danger they were placing themselves in by supporting her.

_How many people have I just condemned to die?_ she wondered.

Beside her, Zelda took hold of Linkali's hand. The young woman turned curiously, and saw a gentle, reassuring smile that momentarily pushed out her anxiety and doubt. Heartened by that, and by the purring in her blood as her piece of the Triforce began to resonate, Lin turned back to HyReCo with a daredevil grin. "Be ready," she told them. "The next time you see me, I will have broken the seal on the final Sage and repaired the Master Sword." Her eyes darted around the room, fixing on as many faces as she could. "And when that day comes, we'll be ready to put Ganon in his place."

* * *

Evening came after what had been a very long, emotionally draining day for Linkali. The young Hylian lay atop Vantage Hill beside Bartal, staring blankly up at the clouds circling Hyrule. Light from the beginnings of the sunset stroked the undersides of the western clouds delicately, touching them with the faintest hint of color. The day's negligible warmth (summers in the land these days were not exactly hot) was starting to give way to the cool of night; fortunately, both youth were clothed to handle the cooling temperatures. It seemed an almost peaceful scene, but one look into Lin's eyes revealed that she was anything but calm. Fear, anxiety, confusion, and so many other things flickered chaotically in her dark blue eyes. The boy resting beside her rolled over and studied those eyes for a few seconds before smiling gently. "Rupee for your thoughts?" he asked mildly.

Lin sat up with a sigh, running her fingers distractedly through her brown bangs; a few strands caught the fading sunlight and gleamed golden as they fell. "I didn't want to bring anyone else into this," she muttered, her eyes darting from Navi hovering close at hand to Bartal laying in the grass. "This was supposed to be _my_ battle. I'm the only one who should be out there, putting her life at stake, and now every able-bodied man and woman in Kokoria Village is going to fight." She shook her head restlessly, a deep frown creasing her pale face. "I dragged everyone into this mess."

"You dragged _no one_ in," the dark-haired youth reminded her bluntly. "Kokoria is fighting because we've all been oppressed and beaten down for so long that we're finally going to act. The tinder was already there and waiting; you were only the spark that started the fire."

Linkali shook her head, not even remotely reassured by his metaphors. Once it had been settled that the Hyrulian Resistance Coalition would fight behind her, the discussion had turned to exactly _how_ they would help. Many plans were looked over and debated, and much to Lin's dismay, a few angry shouts had broken out in the process. In the end, she had been the one to decide which of the few agreed-on tactics would be used. She remembered very well the night that one of them had been presented to HyReCo for approval: It had been the night Bartal had all but shamed Gotari by drawing a parallel between his plan and a fable told by one of the village elders. Linkali had actually seen the potential in that plan, now that she was a bit more tactically-minded.

The plan was almost deceptively simple: A strong-armed assault on Ganon's fortress and forces, taking every able-bodied Hylian in to fight. It was reckless, brash, and could be dangerous if not spearheaded by a confident leader. Lin thought she had sounded almost like Impa—stone-cool and calm—when she had answered the question of leadership with "_I_ will." Surprisingly, no one had objected, claiming she was unfit because of her age or for any other reason; she had spoken her decision in a tone of voice that could not be refuted. Of course, some of the older members had objected when they remembered that carrying out this plan required that HyReCo be exposed to non-members. Linkali had surprised herself with how levelly she had faced her opposition and how calmly she had told them that it would all be worth it in the end. She knew it would be an unpopular choice, but she would stick by it. Out of all of the options presented to her, it had been the one with the least potential for unnecessary harm. It would be easy to let them help her reach Ganon's lair, then send them back to safety while she confronted him alone.

But even then, there was no telling what could happen _before_ she could dismiss them, and _that_ was what had her worried.

"I—I don't know, Bartal," she murmured, looking away from her friend in an attempt to hide the growing worry in her gaze. She swallowed hard. Now that the meeting was over, and she was no longer receiving encouraging looks from Zelda or being soothed by the humming of the Triforce of Courage…she felt tired, drained, and frightened by what lay before her. "It's just…this whole thing…" It wasn't the looming battle that had her worried; it was the fact that said battle was no longer her own burden to bear. Rather than relieved by the lessening of the load, Linkali was made all the more nervous. Everyone who went to fight would be depending on her to guide them safely through this dark time, and any casualties could potentially be blamed on her own incompetence. At the end of the day, if there were any familiar faces that wouldn't be seen around the village anymore, it would be _her _fault. Her voice grew tight with rising panic. "I don't even know _how _I'm going to be able to…to _do_ this. I mean—"

She cut off there as Bartal suddenly gripped the back of her green mantle and pulled her back down from her tense, worried sit. Linkali fell, unable to control herself out of surprise, and landed with one of her pointed ears resting flat atop her friend's upturned chest. She blinked, shifting her head curiously to look up at him. When she tried to rise, Bartal gently pressed her back against his chest. Lin heard his words strangely; one ear heard them humming in harmony with his beating heart, while the other listened to them on the evening air. "Just relax," he told her calmly. "Listen to my heart."

The Hylian girl obeyed, unable to really do much else. The familiar, comforting thud drowned out her worried thoughts, filling her mind with its steady beat. She inhaled deeply, releasing her breath in a calm sigh, and snuggled a little closer to Bartal's chest. The boy rested one hand on her shoulder, rubbing gently in a gesture of comfort. "I know it's a sound that always calms you down," he murmured.

"Why have you been such a good friend to me all these years?" Linkali asked, her eyes narrowed peacefully, her voice a calm mutter.

Bartal hesitated for a minute before answering her. "I figured I should return the favor," he replied. Lin smiled and pressed her ear more closely to his chest, happy that in the midst of all this confusion and turmoil, she could count on Bartal to be there for her.


	23. 22: The Desert Colossus

The sun was only halfway to noon as Rauru flew over the Gerudo Valley, but the heat it gave off was already making Linkali start to sweat. The Hylian crouched low, pressing herself more tightly against the owl's sleek-feathered back. Her blue eyes—narrowed against the wind cut by the Sage of Light's speeding body—scanned the ground below, filling with awe at the view. She couldn't keep a grin from stretching across her face, and felt the swiftly-moving air dry her teeth before she closed her lips again. The thunder of the falls seemed strangely muffled and distant, and its deep roar did not resonate inside her chest as it had when she'd walked across the bridge before. Out of the blue, Rauru wheeled away at a sharp angle, winging strongly against the air currents that rose up from the river beneath. Lin held on tightly to the joints where her mount's wings met his body; she heard Navi's startled gasp and felt the fairy clutch at her mantle anxiously at the sudden swerve. Once they leveled off, the huge owl twisted his head back to look at the two women.

"My apologies for the fright," he hooted. "From here on out, the flight should be smoother." Linkali nodded and relaxed her grip slightly. Rauru turned his head back to the front and glided across the warm, dry air that rose from the desert. If she were a bit more frivolous and imaginative, Lin might have closed her eyes and imagined that _she_ was the one flying over the arid lands; instead, she kept her eyes open, scanning the world beneath with great interest. She saw the marketplace, the compound where the Gerudo lived; Rauru pounded his wings to send himself and his two riders over the high gate into the wasteland.

Almost instantly, the driving, sand-laden winds began to scour the three travelers. Linkali barely had time to wonder if this was a fruitless venture—she could feel the massive owl, strong though he was, being blown very off-course by the sandstorm—when Rauru began pumping his wings even harder than before. Their course was a diagonal one, thanks to the powerful gusts, but steadily, the owl rose through the air until at last he was soaring above the swirling sandstorm. He shook himself briefly, scattering grit from between his feathers. "Hoo! Have I lost you, Lin?"

"No—still here," the girl confirmed. "So is Navi."

"Good to know," Rauru replied. "The Haunted Wasteland is actually much smaller than it seems to those traversing it—it takes so much effort to resist the winds that you feel as if you're traveling twice as far—so our ride will be a bit shorter than you might expect." As he glided, the owl Sage carefully brought one of his wings forward and swept a few flight feathers at an indistinct blur not that far away. "That marks the Desert Colossus, which is home to the Spirit Temple itself." He twisted his head back to study the woman clinging to his back. "I assume that since you are seeking to break Nabooru's seal here, you will not need me to carry you back across the desert?"

"Every Sage I've unsealed so far has taken me to the Sacred Realm once they've gotten their wits together," Lin told him with a small shrug. "I don't see why she would be any different."

"Very true. And if you ever needed my wings again, you need only to warp yourself to the Sacred Realm and ask." The owl beat his broad wings, rising up a bit higher at the end of his glide to avoid dipping back down into the gritty gales. The sandstorm wailed beneath him, as if moaning the loss of a victim to play with. Linkali smiled somewhat grimly as she remembered struggling through the sands below them, and was sincerely glad that she would not have to gamble with her life in the desert, now that Rauru could carry her over it.

"Add the Haunted Wasteland to the list of places I'm glad I'll never have to visit a second time—right under the Shadow Temple," Lin muttered to herself, shuddering slightly. Rauru glanced back at her, not twisting his neck entirely; his head turned to about the same degree that a Hylian's might if he or she were looking over a shoulder. The youth shook her head, smiling to show that she was fine. Doubtlessly, the owl had felt her shivering and been concerned. The Sage of Light nodded calmly, turning to face forward again.

"We are even closer now," he informed her. Linkali turned her eyes forward and was startled to see that the somewhat distant blur was now a very distinct patch of land. High walls of stone, their outer faces scoured smooth from the sandstorms, surrounded a large clearing in the middle of the Wasteland. Lin could see one spire that rose above the rest, and without even being able to see the well-endowed woman carved into it, she knew she was looking at the Spirit Temple. A few palm trees were scattered about the Colossus, and she could catch a glint of water as well. "Where would you like me to drop you off?"

"Closer to the Spirit Temple, I guess," she replied.

"It would be easiest for me if I did not have to land fully in order to deliver you to your destination," the owl pointed out, turning partway over his shoulder again to look at her. "Are you comfortable with jumping? I'll swoop in low and you can just slide off my back."

"I'd be lying if I said that was the most reckless-sounding stunt I've ever heard of," Linkali told him, smirking to herself. "It looks like it's mostly sand down there, which should cushion the impact."

"Sand overlaying sand_stone_," Rauru corrected. "You should be fine, though. This will not be the first time you've been dropped by an owl mid-flight, if I recall correctly." Lin nodded, remembering the wild ride that had precluded their battle when the Light Sage had still been corrupted. "Make ready—I'm coming in lower now. Whenever you are comfortable, jump!"

The owl Sage tilted his massive wings downward. Linkali glanced at Navi, making sure that her fairy friend—who had been surprisingly quite during the ride—knew not to stay perched on her shoulder for the fall. (Lin planned to roll with the impact; remembering their first encounter in the Lost Woods, she knew that despite her loud voice and sometimes saucy attitude, Navi was actually quite delicate.) The ground zoomed steadily closer. Rauru was not diving, per say, but he was certainly losing altitude at a rate that some might find alarming. Lin readied herself, gauging the distance carefully. Her blue eyes narrowed in concentration, and a small line appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned thoughtfully. Rauru was a little more than ten feet above the ground when the young woman on his back patted him gently and murmured, "All right, Rauru—I'm off. Thanks for the lift."

With that, Linkali released her grip on the Sage of Light's muscular shoulders, sliding off his sleek back easily. She landed on the ground below with a small burst of sand and went into a somersault to shed the momentum from her fall. By the time she was on her feet, Rauru was already high in the sky and circling the Desert Colossus like a vulture. Lin grinned, waving up at him in farewell. She heard a faint hoot—the sound was soft because of the distance between them—and the owl began winging away towards the Wasteland. Linkali waited until he was out of sight before turning her attention to the area she had just been dropped into.

The Desert Colossus was, from end to end, about the same size as the area around the marketplace and fortress in the Valley, perhaps a little bigger. The spot Lin had chosen to fall down at was reasonably close to the far end of the sheltered grotto; her eyes were wide with amazement as she looked up at the weathered, crumbling face of the woman carved at the Spirit Temple's entrance. That's _not something you'd see around Kokoria,_ she thought, shaking her head in amazement. The carving had certainly seen better days, although the workmanship was evident. After Nayru knew how many years of standing in the middle of a sandstorm-battered wasteland, it was still plainly recognizable as being a woman. Linkali had to wonder just _how_ the image had been sculpted—and by whom, and over how many years. She remembered reading all those months ago in the Hero's story about this place, and the tome had specifically mentioned the carved stone woman—the Goddess of the Sand, the Gerudo's deity. To see it with her own two eyes was simply…breathtaking. (She also felt a tickle in the back of her mind, the strange déjà-vu that she had come to expect when she set foot near places that the Hero of Time had visited.)

Her eyes flicked around worriedly when she realized that she had no idea where Navi was. It took a bit of looking, but she finally located the fairy. Navi was hovering off to the side of the Colossus, few feet above her, investigating a hole that had been carved into the rock wall about eight feet from the ground. Now that she was looking, Linkali realized that there were quite a few such holes hewn into the rock wall that closed the Colossus off from the rest of the wasteland. From her position on the ground, it was impossible to tell just _what_ the holes were, but even Lin could see that they were not natural—they were too smooth, too symmetrical, too purposeful, too neatly aligned with one another. A minute later, Navi spotted her waiting and drifted down a bit closer. "They're windows," she said, answering the unspoken question in her partner's eyes. "I looked inside, and I could see what honestly looked like someone's bedroom."

Linkali frowned thoughtfully, her gaze lowering and shifting behind her, to the rock wall that wrapped around the other side of the colossus. She thought she could see more of the same windows along part of that wall as well. It struck her as strange that there could be windows (and, Navi had said, _rooms_) in the heavy, brown-black stone; then she remembered what the old fortune-teller had told her on her first venture into the desert lands:_ Nabooru seeks to keep the old Gerudo ways alive and strong; she takes in the children of those women who want their daughters to be raised under the old rules and trained in the old arts, to be _true_ Gerudo._ The old woman had said that the Desert Colossus was where Nabooru trained those she took in; it stood to reason that all of those warriors-in-training would have to sleep somewhere. So Lin had found what looked like a place for people to live—though as far as she could see, there was no way to _enter_ said place—but she couldn't see anyone—

"Lin, look _out_!" Navi screeched sharply, snapping the Hylian youth out of her thoughts. Linkali jerked her head up just in time to see a broad-bladed scimitar slice through the air at an angle towards her. She staggered back a step with a strangled gasp and watched the sword bury itself halfway to the hilt in the sun-baked sand between her feet. Slowly, her stunned gaze shifted upward, following the weapon's trajectory to the top of the stone wall.

No sooner did Lin's eyes focus on the wall-top than the unmistakable tawny-skinned, beak-nosed face of a Gerudo appeared. The woman leaned slightly over the ledge and appeared to be studying the Hylian below with concern. After a moment, she flashed a thumbs-up and cocked her head just slightly to the side, wordlessly asking if Linkali was unharmed. Lin returned the gesture to indicate that she was indeed whole. The tanned thief above her hesitated as she lowered her hand, and a mischievous grin spread like wildfire across her face. Turning over her shoulder, she called in a drawling voice, "Oh, _clever_ move, Bintu. I _told_ you to keep your grip firm, and look what happened when you didn't. You've gone and killed someone with your clumsiness."

"_Whaaaat?"_

Though she was a fair distance beneath the two women, Linkali cringed at the sheer volume of the second voice, the voice that had screamed in disbelief. She heard footsteps slamming wildly along the top of the stone wall, and a split second later, the face of a second Gerudo appeared beside (and decidedly lower than) the first. The second Gerudo had one hand pressed up against her face as she leaned dangerously far over the edge, her head snapping from side to side frantically. "Where? Where?" she cried, her voice high-pitched with terror. The older thief placed one hand firmly on her head and tilted it downwards so that the girl's eyes were locked onto Lin. The Hylian waved, tugging the sword at her feet free from the sand.

"Go get your scimitar, Bintu," the woman ordered, her voice heavy with a somewhat strained calm. The younger Gerudo—Bintu, Linkali figured—bolted out of sight. A few seconds later, she reappeared at one of the lower windows, vaulting out of it with a grace that Lin wished she had half of. The young thief's landing was light, almost effortless, and without even hesitating, she darted towards the woman holding her weapon.

When she skidded to a halt, throwing up a small wave of sand, Lin took a moment to get a better look at the girl. She was about the same size as Talina, although visibly taller by a few inches, and looked to be near her little sister's age as well. Her hair was a rich color, partway between dark red and orange, and pulled back into a high ponytail atop her head. One of her hands reached for the scimitar held out to her (Linkali noticed that she was wearing a pair of wrist-guards); the other stayed close to her tawny face. As the older woman watched, Bintu pushed a pair of rather thick, somewhat battered glasses up the length of her pointed nose. Her golden eyes were magnified to a ridiculous size behind those lenses, but that only seemed to amplify the pleasant glitter they held.

"I believe this is yours," Linkali murmured as the girl took her weapon back.

"Yeah. Thanks for grabbing it for me." The small Gerudo grinned broadly up at her as the hand holding her glasses in place fell away. "Sorry for almost skewering you with it, though." She paused, her eyes darting up and down the young woman's body (her hand darting out with practiced ease to catch her glasses when she looked down). "Say, you're not from around here, are you?"

"No."

"See, I can tell for a lot of reasons. For one, you're dressed really strangely." She seemed to study Linkali's clothing while the Hylian examined hers. The girl wouldn't have lasted long outside of her desert home—that was for sure. Her cream-colored top was barely there. It was little more than a vest whose front have been stitched shut; it was too short to cover her midriff, and left her back and belly bare. Her sand-hued pants were of an unfamiliar cut, loose and baggy around her thighs, but cut close near her ankles. _That_ style wouldn't keep any heat to her body, and the fabric looked thin to boot. She had on a pair of shin-guards as well, and instead of boots, she wore a pair of light brown slippers on her feet. "No one in the desert wears green like that, really, and your top looks too thick, and those shoes you've got on will just collect sand and rub your feet raw."

"You know, where I come from, you would look pretty strange, too," Linkali pointed out, grinning at the girl. There was nothing in her voice but pure amusement, and perhaps a bit of loneliness. Bintu reminded her almost painfully of Talina in the blunt, open, honest way she spoke.

"Just so you know, sister, where we are now isn't where you come from," the young Gerudo said with a friendly smile. "I mean"—she thrust out her bare, brown arm, pausing while Linkali rolled up her own sleeve—"yeah, look at you. You're so much _paler_ than anyone I've ever met—not that that's a bad thing; looks good on you, but it's kinda strange." Her magnified eyes flicked up to study the older girl's face. "Your hair is so much different from anyone else's, too, and I've _never_ seen eyes like yours before!"

"Bintu!"

The young Gerudo balked, twitching slightly as the woman standing atop the stone wall shouted down at her. Her glasses slipped down her nose a bit further, and two fingers shot out swiftly to catch them and shove them up higher again. Her yellow eyes returned to Lin. "By the way, that's my mentor, Aliyah," she explained brightly, extending her other hand towards the woman, who was growing visibly impatient. "She's the one training me in the old ways—how to fight and flip and all that. It's hard work, especially since she likes to train closer to noon, since there's no one around to distract us or get in the way—everyone's usually hiding out and waiting for the sun to start to set. I still like it, though; the past few times I've gone back to the Valley and seen my mother, she's always so proud of me." Bintu paused. "So what's your name?"

"Lin," the Hylian replied. Bintu nodded rapidly. She opened her mouth and looked as if she were about to say something further, when—

"_Bintu!_"

The Gerudo jumped in surprise, dropping her scimitar and reaching up desperately to catch her slipping glasses before they slid right off the end of her long nose. She held them to her face with both hands for a moment or two, blinking up at Linkali with her owlish eyes; then, a soft laugh escaped her as she lowered her hands. "In case you hadn't already figured it out, my name's Bintu," she said sheepishly. Her golden eyes darted back to Aliyah, who was still leaning over the edge of the wall and staring down at her apprentice. Bintu bent down and grabbed her sword hastily, keeping two fingers pressed against the bridge of her nose to keep her glasses in place. "I think I'd better go." The tanned child took a few steps in the direction of the wall, then turned. "Actually, sister—why don't you come with me? No one else is really awake right now, and if I head off, that's going to leave you standing here alone for the next five or six hours." She motioned swiftly with the hand that had been holding her glasses in place. "C'mon!"

Lin glanced up at Navi, who shrugged. Turning back, she saw that Bintu was already making a beeline for the stone wall, and hurried after her. The tiny Gerudo strapped the scimitar she had dropped across her back and leapt right at the side of the wall; her fingers tensed like claws to grip the uneven rock, and inside her soft-soled slippers, her toes curled down as well. She scaled the wall like a quick spider, never once hesitating or looking back. Aliyah strode over and deftly grasped the girl under the arms when she neared the top of the wall, hauling her up enough that Bintu was able to scramble over on her own. The older Gerudo looked down at Linkali, who was giving her a look that plainly said _You honestly expect me to be able to do _that_?_ "Sit tight, sister, and I'll throw you a rope," Aliyah called down. She disappeared, returning a few moments later with a coil of thick rope. Lin watched the tawny-skinned woman wrap the cord around her own wrists a few times before tossing the other end down. Once the Hylian girl started to climb, Aliyah braced her heels against the ledge in front of her and pulled back to keep tension in the line. Slowly, Linkali scaled the wall, dragging herself over the ledge at the top to land with a sigh of relief at Aliyah's feet. She blinked up at the other woman.

Aliyah looked to be a number of years older than Lin; the blue-eyed girl figured she was in her early twenties. She was tall and lean, with an uncanny suppleness to her elegant body that the Hylian youth had only seen in the Gerudo so far. Her hair was a striking shade of dark, crimson red, grown long and pulled back into a sweeping ponytail decorated with a large amber-colored jewel. (Though still somewhat extravagant, the ornament was clearly an heirloom that had seen better days.) Just like her apprentice, the Gerudo thief had finely-shaped eyes with piercing yellow irises and a long, pointed nose. Aliyah also dressed similarly to Bintu, though her clothing looked a little finer (Linkali would later learn that apprentices tended to wear hand-me-downs during training, since they usually wound up picking themselves off the ground and would only spoil fine garments with how roughly they exercised). While Lin was looking the older woman over, Aliyah was also evaluating the newcomer. She did not speak, but instead turned to her apprentice after a moment. There was almost an air of _Yes, you exist, and I'll acknowledge that more fully in a moment_ in her actions.

Bintu had been fidgeting slightly where she stood. In a swift, decisive motion, Aliyah reached for the young child's face and tugged off her glasses smoothly. Bintu froze in place, blinking out at the distance calmly. The older woman turned away from her apprentice and fiddled with the girl's eyewear for a minute or two. "The arm is loose," she muttered, more to herself than the others. "That's why they keep trying to fall off your face." She wiggled the arm of the glasses for a bit, as if reassuring herself that her diagnosis had been correct, only to tense as a small piece of metal dropped down from the glasses and pinged across the stone wall's flattened top. The woman shot Linkali a look that was mildly surprised as she held up the two pieces.

"You know, Aliyah, you're always telling me that I'm missing a few screws," Bintu joked. "It seems you're right." Aliyah gave her apprentice a long look, then smiled with a sigh.

"You're precious, aren't you?" Aliyah bent down and picked up the loose screw, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. She turned to Lin, eyeing her carefully. "How good are you with tiny tasks?"

"Terrible." Linkali glanced up at Navi. "But I've got a friend with small hands." The blue fairy bobbed her body in a nod when Aliyah turned to her. After listening to the older Gerudo explain how the two pieces would fit together, Navi started working to set the screw back into place. When she completed the task, Aliyah held the glasses up and wiggled the arm again experimentally; it continued to move just as freely. The Gerudo frowned.

"You're not missing a screw, Bintu," she pronounced. "You're short a nut, though. Without that, this screw's just going to keep slipping." She looked back at the girl. "Where's your repair kit?"

Bintu began digging around in the pouches attached to her belt, her hands clawing blindly at the contents of the pockets. Her eyes stayed looking forward; it seemed that her vision was so poor without her glasses that she didn't even bother _trying_ to use her eyes when she wasn't wearing them. Aliyah stopped her, sliding the glasses back up her nose. The younger Gerudo held them there with a finger while she continued her search. After a few minutes, she looked up sheepishly. "I think I left it back at the barracks," she said softly. Aliyah sighed.

"Goddess of the Sand, it's a hopeless venture, then," she muttered. "You go in there to find it, and you'll wake everyone else up, and then I'll get nailed by twenty different sisters because it'll essentially be my fault that their apprentices' sleep was disturbed." She rolled her eyes, though she seemed to be angrier at the forgotten repair kit than at the girl who had forgotten it. Bintu mumbled an apology, catching her glasses just in time as she dropped her head in shame. "You know I tell you to keep your kit with you at all times…" Aliyah paused, her golden eyes flicking to Linkali as if noticing her for the first time, despite the fact that she had acknowledged her once before. After a moment, she spoke, addressing the Hylian. "Is there any specific matter that brings you this deep into the desert, sister?" she asked calmly. Her voice was a little more guarded than Bintu's had been when she addressed Lin earlier, though she was by no means cold.

"Actually, yes," the young Hylian replied. "I'm looking for a woman by the name of Nabooru."

"Why, would you like to speak with her?" The tanned woman sounded totally unconcerned, as if this were a completely normal request.

"…Is that possible?"

Aliyah offered her a small grin. "More so than you'd think," she admitted. "Actually, if you plan on spending any real amount of time here, you'll be hard-pressed _not_ to talk to her." Bintu nodded eagerly. Aliyah shifted her gaze to the sky, frowning against the harsh sunlight. "Well, since it looks like Bintu won't get any training in—it's pretty hard to handle two scimitars when one of your hands is dedicated to keeping your glasses on your face—looks like we've got nothing better to do with our time than show you around the Colossus." Her golden eyes scrutinized the youth standing before her, and she nodded once. "You're about the same size as me. I could probably loan you some clothes, if you wanted. You'd stand out a lot less, and you wouldn't be…dripping sweat."

Linkali looked away embarrassedly, a little uncomfortable at having it pointed out so bluntly. Perhaps she wasn't _dripping_ sweat, but she certainly wasn't dry of skin either. Her long sleeves, heavy boots, and goats'-wool mantle were not doing her any favors in the scorching desert sunlight. She was decidedly flushed as well, yet another outward sign that her body was scrambling to cool down inside her warm clothing. Still, despite the fact that it was natural and wholly out of her control, Lin was a little ashamed of it. "Sorry…"

Aliyah raised an eyebrow, shrugging lightly. "It's not like it's bothering _me_ any," she pointed out mildly. "I just figured you be more comfortable if you were dressed a bit more appropriately for the heat." A smile flickered across her white-painted lips. "Come on—let's get you fitted out for the time being."

Lin didn't really have time to decline, although she wasn't entirely sure she _wanted_ to turn down Aliyah's offer. She followed the lean Gerudo as she sauntered across the flat top of the stone wall, and Bintu padded along beside her, occasionally flashing the Hylian enthusiastic grins. A bit further down the wall was a wooden hatch, which Aliyah lifted to reveal a flight of stairs leading down into cool darkness. Bintu moved down first, beckoning Linkali eagerly. The older girl grinned and followed, blinking for a few minutes while her eyes adjusted to the change in light.

Surprisingly enough, the rock wall was completely hollowed out on the inside. The wall itself was perhaps twelve feet wide, though from what Linkali had seen, it got even wider closer to the ground. The passages cut through it had been carefully hewn so that they were wide enough for multiple people to walk together abreast without feeling cramped, and high enough that not even the tall Hylian had to incline her head to walk through it. Light from the desert outside streamed in from windows on the side of the wall that faced into the Colossus; Lin figured that if they had cut windows on the other side, the sandstorm would wail through the hollow stone and spray sand everywhere. The Hylian youth's footsteps sounded loud and clunky when compared to the dainty, almost catlike patter of Bintu's slippered feet, and they echoed dully back to her with every stride she took. She paused and turned when Aliyah rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Lose the boots, sister," she ordered calmly. "People are sleeping right now. Don't worry—you aren't going to cut your feet on _these_ floors."

Now that her eyes had adjusted more fully to the dim light, Linkali could see that the floors in question were indeed rather smooth and free of debris. (She would later learn that the Gerudo were fastidious when it came to their floors; their slippers' thin soles allowed their feet to curve and curl for better grips when climbing, but were easily punctured by even the smallest pieces of loose stone.) The young woman leaned back against the wall as she tugged off her shoes and socks, stuffed the socks into her boots, and tucked them under her arm. Aliyah nodded. "Dorms are this way—just follow." She led Lin down a fair piece of the hall. The Hylian was honestly a little awed. Though Bintu's footfalls had been light and quiet, her mentor's were dead silent; Aliyah glided soundlessly over the ground, despite the fact that she did not seem to be sneaking at all, but merely walking normally.

Once Linkali and Bintu were inside her room, Aliyah wasted no time crossing over to a small chest at the foot of her cot. While she was pulling out clothes for the Hylian to borrow, Lin found herself looking around the small room in curious awe. It was a little smaller than her own room in the loft back in Kokoria. On one side of the room, by the door, a stacked setup of several wooden crates and planks formed an impromptu set of shelves, on which were arranged colorful glassworks, a few notebooks, stones carved into exotic shapes by the scouring winds, a lamp, and a small stone urn. Above the bed was a skull—Linkali guessed it was a sheep or goat skull—cleaned and bleached, with an array of colorful feathers behind it. She had seen similar talismans throughout the hall thus far, and assumed they held some meaning for the desert women. Aliyah also had a collection of graceful jars and urns in one corner of her room, as well as a jug for water and a cup beside it. The floor was dotted with small patches of sand; the girl was tempted to admire how decoratively they seemed to lay, until she realized that it was likely just grit that had been tracked in from outside. (True, the Gerudo were careful to keep their floors clean, but they tended not to care about sand—it wasn't something that would hurt your feet, really.) The room itself was lit by the massive, round window carved out of the stone, which had no glass or screen to separate the room from the world outside.

Aliyah turned back, holding out a loose bundle of clothing to the Hylian standing behind her. "Here—try this on and we'll see if it fits," she said. Linkali looked between the two Gerudo somewhat uncomfortably for a few minutes, a little unsure of what to say. One of Aliyah's eyebrows lifted. "You realize that we're all women here, right?" she asked dryly. "There's no reason for you to be shy about showing your body to us—it isn't like there's any parts you have that are going to shock us."

_Yes, but that doesn't mean I can't like a little privacy,_ Linkali thought awkwardly, her hesitance showing up very clearly in her blue eyes. She watched as Aliyah's second eyebrow rose to join the first—clearly, the Gerudo thief was startled by the clarity of the other woman's eyes—and she turned away with a small shrug. Modesty between women was not something the Gerudo were familiar with; they changed freely in front of their sisters without any sort of shame. Still, Lin was not one of the Gerudo, and though her desire for privacy was strange, the two other women would respect it. Once Bintu had also looked aside, the Hylian changed out of her own clothes and into those that had been loaned to her. "Right…how do I look?" she asked.

Aliyah's golden eyes widened as she looked up and down the young woman standing in front of her. "Not bad," she admitted. "Not sure how well you'll fit in, though; even if you _are_ dressed like the rest of us, your skin's a real tip-off that you're not from around here." She shrugged mildly. "Well, if nothing else, you'll make a lot of friends because _everyone_ will want to talk with the foreigner tonight at dinner." The Gerudo warrior held her arm up beside Lin's. The difference between the two women's complexions was not so much night and day as it was early evening and dawn. "You aren't pale as a ghost, but you've definitely got a lot less color than the rest of us. We'll have to be careful how long we stay out in the sun for the rest of the day—you'd probably burn to a crisp in this sunlight."

Once Linkali had pulled on the pair of soft slippers Aliyah loaned her, the three young women set out to explore the compound, with the two Gerudo happily taking the lead. Lin's amazement only grew with the more she was shown. Single and shared bedrooms for fully-trained warriors, barracks for apprentice warriors, several kitchens, a massive dining hall, an infirmary, an armory, a forge, a number of indoor training rooms, and even a large study were all contained within the hollowed-out rock walls; add to it, not one, but _two_ floors had been hewn into the stone. Bintu seemed to take on the role of guide, pointing out and naming the various different places to be seen; she seemed positively thrilled to have the Hylian paying such close attention to her every word. Linkali could hardly believe that something so elaborate and carefully crafted could exist in the middle of such a barren wasteland. The Desert Colossus was a veritable oasis.

As the hours passed by, more of the Gerudo living there began to come awake. They passed the group of three in the halls, often pausing to stare curiously at the fair-skinned, pointy-eared Hylian walking around in clothing like their own. (For her own part, Linkali couldn't help being intrigued by the fact that the tanned desert women had comparatively smaller, rounded ears—she'd never seen anything like it before.) Fascinated though they clearly were, the other women did not approach Lin to speak with her; they may be living under the old codes here, but even in the days before Ganon was king, the Gerudo hadn't been the most trusting of races. More than one apprentice was tugged away before the girl could ask questions of the stranger in the Colossus. Bintu assured her that it was not dislike that kept them distant, but rather fear of the unknown. "Until Mother Nabooru is able to tell them that you're a friend, they'll probably keep avoiding you," the girl pointed out with a shrug.

"Tell them that who's a friend, Bintu?" a warm voice asked from behind the three women. Out of the corner of her eye, Linkali saw Navi's entire body go stiff and held out a hand to catch the fairy in the event that she forgot how to hover in her shock. Predictably, Navi dropped down into her palm. The Hylian youth turned around to face the speaker, her blue eyes widening with surprise.

Standing not six feet away was a woman Lin was at a loss to describe. She was lean and tall, her posture perfect and her bearing confident, almost cocky. Her limbs had muscles that looked lithe and tough. At first glance—thanks to how limber her frame was—she might have passed for an older adult, a woman perhaps in her late fifties, but it didn't take much more than a few seconds to realize that she was incredibly old. Her skin had seen years of harsh desert sun, and clung to her willowy body like creased leather. Her face was lined with more wrinkles than even Zelda could claim to have; her catlike, golden eyes were nearly lost in the folds of tanned flesh that rose around her eyes when she grinned in welcome. (Linkali could see that she still had all of her teeth, and that they had the look of aged ivory—not quite white anymore, but not exactly yellow.) Her ears had been pierced once, and their lobes stretched down a fair way, though she was not wearing any earrings now. The old Gerudo's hair was a sleek, long river of white and pale gray, with a single streak of faded red running through her sweeping ponytail like a rusty memory of her youth.

"Seventy-five women in the Colossus, and you know them all from the front, back, sides, and probably even the top and bottom, Mother Nabooru," murmured Aliyah. Lin heard none of her usual dryness when she spoke; the sarcastic Gerudo's voice held nothing but pure affection for the old woman standing before her.

_That's Nabooru?_ Linkali asked Navi with her thoughts, glancing down at the blue woman cupped in her hand. The fairy nodded, still too stunned to see the former Sage of Spirit to form even a nonverbal reply.

"More so the top than the bottom," Nabooru countered mildly, tugging one of her silken white gloves a little higher up on her forearm. "I can spy on you from a vantage point, but it's hard to watch you from beneath your feet." The high corners of her smile faded slightly—though it seemed to be more out of curiosity than displeasure—and her golden eyes focused on Lin. "Can't say as that I know _this_ particular daughter, though—and Goddess forbid that I've gotten so old that I can't recognize a Hylian who's been living at the Colossus for years." She laughed. "This may be the first time one of your kind has actually come here since we started living in this place. What's your name, daughter?"

"Linkali," the girl replied, "although I'd be happier if you just called me 'Lin.'" The old Gerudo nodded, looking at Lin in an appraising manner. She took a few steps closer to peer intently at the younger woman, then grinned again.

"What brings you out this far?" she asked. There was nothing in her voice but honest curiosity. Like the rest of her people, Nabooru was hesitant to trust a stranger, but she was intensely interested in anything out of the ordinary.

"Looking for you, actually." Linkali balked before she settled Navi down on her shoulder. Spinning her hands around quickly, she summoned the Spirit Medallion. Her heart was thrilling joyously in her chest. _This is going to be easier than breaking Saria's seal!_ Nabooru seemed startled to see a display of magic from a Hylian, but other than that, she remained calm; the Gerudo had retained their propensity for magic even after Ganon took over, although aside from the Twinrova witches, none of them had done anything over-the-top or fancy with their powers. The Hylian girl balanced the item on the tips of her first two fingers, holding it out just slightly towards Nabooru. "I need to give this to you—it's…it's very important that you take it."

Nabooru's eyes widened briefly at the sight of the orange Medallion. Was that a flicker of recognition in her gaze? Probably not, since she had sealed away all memories that could be connected to the artifact, but she did seem highly interested in the object. Lin felt excitement begin to burn in her belly, and she couldn't keep a relieved smile off her face. Nabooru didn't even have to accept the Medallion—if she only picked it up to investigate it more closely, that would be enough to break her seal. The Gerudo elder leaned forward to look more carefully at the object balanced on Lin's fingers…but her own hands remained at her sides. Her eyes darted up to meet the girl's, then returned to looking at the Spirit Medallion. After a moment, the sealed Sage stepped back with an apologetic smile and shrugged her shoulders lightly. "Sorry Lin," she said at last. "It's a lovely bauble, but I'm not going to take it from you."

Linkali felt her stomach clench in disbelief. "Wh…why?" she stammered softly.

"I like the look of you, kid," the dark-skinned woman said with a smile. Her yellow gaze flicked to the girl's face. "Especially those eyes of yours—they almost remind me of someone, but I can't think of who it was." **(1) **She shrugged in a lax manner. "Meh, well, it probably wasn't anyone too important, otherwise I would have remembered. Or maybe I'm finally starting to show my age. Anyway, like I was saying: I like the look of you, but it's too hard to trust just anyone these days. It's even harder for the Gerudo. My people trusted Ganondorf to bring us riches, glory, and power, and look what happened to us! We were thrown aside and left to wither in the desert." She scoffed. "So much for our _noble_ _King_."

"You can trust me, though," Linkali assured her gently, though she was a little hesitant to push the issue. She hated to think that what might have been her easiest unsealing yet wouldn't be as easy as previously thought, but she knew that forcing Nabooru to take the Medallion or even seeming desperate to give it away, would only look suspicious.

"I'll bet I can," Nabooru soothed, smiling gently. "But I'm not going to trust you this far, not yet." She flipped a hand towards Linkali's. "Last I heard, Hylians couldn't use magic, not even if they tried. It could be that you lucked out and somehow managed to learn it—but it could also be that you're working for the Evil King and he's given you that measure of power, in which case taking that thing from you could very well seal my fate."

It was impossible to miss the dejection in Lin's blue eyes at being turned down. What could she do? Lunge forward and press the Medallion to Nabooru's skin forcibly? That might work, but the Hylian doubted she had the kind of ruthlessness needed to tackle an elderly woman, and even if everything went well, there were more Gerudo around than just Bintu, Aliyah, and Nabooru; it didn't seem wise to attempt to assault the leader of a warrior race that was all around you. (Besides, something told her that like Zelda, there was far more strength in the Spirit Sage's body than appearances might lead one to believe.) Should she ask for one of the two woman standing beside her to take the Medallion, to prove that it was nothing harmful? That wouldn't work: Curses could be tailored to only affect certain people, and for all Nabooru knew, the Spirit Medallion could have something like that attached to it. Linkali wasn't ready to give up just now, but deep down she knew that in this case, her stubbornness could very well be her undoing. She had to be careful and play it safe, or risk doing something that would close Nabooru's mind to taking the Medallion back.

The former Sage sighed softly. "Don't act like it's the end of the world," she murmured, folding her sinewy arms over her chest. "Listen, daughter, everything I've said so far is true. No Hylian I've heard of can use magic, although I remember the days when they _could_, so your little trick just now makes you a curious character—_curious_, but not necessarily suspicious. There's also the matter of your little fairy friend, too. I can't claim to be an expert on them, but I'm pretty sure they won't attach themselves to anyone who's not a wonderful person deep down." Lin's expression looked more hopeful. "You might be working for that no-good traitor who calls himself _King_"—Nabooru's voice dripped with venom each time she spoke of Ganon; the poisonous tone left the instant she stopped talking about him—"but then again, you might just be an innocent young woman who traveled to the far reaches of the desert to deliver something to me." Again, the old woman bent closer to the Medallion. "That thing's got a lot of power inside it, and I can't tell exactly where or what it's from. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad." Her eyes flicked up to Linkali. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough, eh?"

"What do you mean by that?" Lin asked.

Nabooru swept her arm in a grand gesture at the stone halls surrounding them. "Stay a while," she replied. "We've got a spare room you can take. Live among us for a few days; be our sister—be my daughter—and we'll see." Again, her eyes connected with the young Hylian's, and she seemed to probe their blue depths intently for a few seconds before grinning and looking a little less intensely at Linkali. "We'd love to have you with us. Maybe in those days, you'll win me over and I'll take whatever it is you want to give me. Until then, though, you hold onto that whatever-it-is." Though none of the friendliness left her demeanor, it was clear that Nabooru was done arguing. Linkali nodded, accepting her offer of a place to stay, and tucked the Spirit Medallion into the pouch on her belt.

_Rest assured, Nabooru,_ she thought. _I _will_ win you over. Distrust me all you want; I won't leave until I've released your seal and awakened you as the Sage you used to be._

* * *

Word traveled quickly among the Gerudo. One might make some sort of remark about gossipy women spreading rumors like wildfire, although in reality, the desert warriors were simply so closely connected to each other that few things escaped notice for long. As she followed Aliyah and Bintu out for a continuation of their training—with the latter sporting a pair of newly-tightened glasses that did not slide off her nose unless she looked straight down **(3)**—Linkali heard, more than once, hushed voices whispering her name. She would turn and see one or two Gerudo around the corner or on the wall above her, and they would nod, wave, or smile in greeting. It didn't take long for word to get around that the Hylian was there to live with them for a while, and that her stay had already been approved by Mother Nabooru. The sealed Sage seemed to be the _appointed _as well as the _spiritual _leader of this small group of her people; Nabooru's approval was all that was needed for something to be accepted by the rest of the tribe.

Lin grew so used to hearing her name and turning in time to catch a friendly look that she was caught completely off-guard when she felt a particularly sour stare burning into the back of her neck. She turned, looking up at the offender to see a somewhat broad-shouldered Gerudo glowering down at her from the top of the stone wall. The woman did not let up on her angry look, not even when it was very obvious that the one she was staring at _knew_ she was being watched. Linkali frowned uncomfortably, turning away. "Now _that's_ a scowl," she muttered, smiling grimly as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. Both Bintu and Aliyah turned to look.

"No, that's Sabu," the younger Gerudo corrected innocently. Lin laughed under her breath.

"I'm impressed," she said softly. "That woman must be the grand master of the fine art of the angry stare. Seriously, not even _Gokali _can put that much hatred into a single look."

"Don't feel special; Sabu hates everyone," Aliyah replied bluntly, turning back around as if bored of looking at the sour-faced Gerudo. "Well, everyone except Mother Nabooru—which I'm pretty sure is impossible to do."

"Why do you refer to her as 'Mother'?" Navi asked curiously. Aliyah acknowledged the fairy with a shrug.

"Because, to be completely honest, she _is_," she answered. "Most of us come to this place not long after we've learned to walk. Mother Nabooru takes us in and raises us until we're old enough to hold our swords, and after that…well, the rest of the sisters take charge." She paused. "I came here a bit later than most, though; I was about twelve before my mother decided it would be best for me if I learned to be a true warrior instead of hanging around in an unprosperous Valley."

"How old are you, Aliyah?" Linkali couldn't help asking. The Gerudo woman paused thoughtfully, a small frown creasing her tawny forehead.

"I'm twenty…_three_ years old, last time I checked," she said, giving a lax shrug. "I don't know. It's been a while; I'm probably due for a birthday soon."

Lin nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the hollowed stone wall that wrapped around the Colossus. Sabu was gone—or, had ducked down under the ledge—and she had taken her hate-filled glare with her. Something didn't quite settle with the Hylian about this woman. She didn't think Sabu was untrustworthy by any stretch of the imagination…but at the same time, Lin didn't really trust her. Granted, it was more of a personal thing than an actual sense of foreboding, but the girl wasn't entirely sure she liked Sabu.

* * *

The days rolled by, and as each one passed, Linkali felt herself being drawn more and more deeply into the Gerudo's society. They were all happy to welcome their strange new sister into their group, and she was eager to accept. Growing up in Kokoria Village, Lin had been instilled with a deep need to be around tightly-knit groups of people. These women seemed to be even more close to one another than even the people from her own village, which was saying something. It wasn't long before the Hylian girl completely lost her hesitance and shyness around the others; they didn't seem to mind it at all, and in fact seemed to want to pull her in even more. Several warriors approached her and asked if she would like to try her hand at fighting with their dual scimitars—the training more often than not ended in failure, but the Gerudo weren't bothered. They laughed when she stumbled, but always offered her a hand up, always advised her, always tried to be helpful. The only member of the tribe who _didn't_ seem to want Linkali around was Sabu. Fortunately, their paths did not cross frequently, and when they did, it was without confrontation; Sabu would merely scowl and walk back the way she'd come.

Though she spent most of her time with Aliyah and Bintu, Lin often found herself talking with Nabooru as well. The old woman was fascinated by the girl's blue soul-eyes ("I _swear_, I've seen someone with eyes just like yours," she would often say; Linkali wouldn't say that she knew _who_ the woman was thinking of—she didn't know what the Gerudo thought of the Hero of Time), and she loved to hear stories about what Hyrule was like now. In return for such tales, Nabooru would tell the Hylian all about the Colossus: how they had come here, why they chose this place. Lin had asked why the Gerudo here seemed to be so much richer, a question that had been plaguing her for the entirety of her time in the desert thus far.

"Traders," Nabooru had replied, gesturing even deeper into the wasteland. "The wares we get from our sisters still in the Valley don't sell for much, though; we try to send back as much as we can while still supporting ourselves out here, but…it isn't anywhere near enough. For instance, fifty years after the completion of the project, I'm still paying off the families of the workers who came and hollowed out these walls for us to live in—the job was _that_ expensive, and glass and fine tapestries only sell for so much." She had paused, looking over at Linkali rather shrewdly. "We may seem rich to you, but I can tell you that the Gerudo used to be ten times wealthier than we are now—even those of us out here. I remember the days before that traitorous _King_ took control of Hyrule." She'd sighed dramatically after that; a powerful hatred would enter her voice—and the voice of nearly every Gerudo—when Ganon was spoken of, and the sealed Sage did not seem to like sounding spiteful for longer than she had to. "Daughter, I'm _old_! I'll have my two-hundredth birthday before long!" **(2)**

Linkali often found herself on pins and needles whenever she spoke with Nabooru. Impa's prediction had been spot-on—she truly liked the Sage of Spirit—but she was also very eager to complete her mission. She wanted to deliver the Medallion to its Sage, but at the same time, she knew better than to try and rush things.

Lin had been with the Gerudo at the Desert Colossus for nearly a week before she received an actual summons from Nabooru herself. She hurried to meet the old woman, wondering what could possibly happen now. Nabooru never _summoned_ anyone; she would usually wander the grounds of the Colossus until she found the woman she needed to speak to. The leader of the Gerudo was waiting in her own room, gazing mildly out the window. She looked up when Lin approached and smiled warmly in the stone-cooled dimness of her room. "Good to see you, daughter," she said, leaning casually back against the wall beside the window and folding her brown arms over her chest. "I see you got my message just fine."

"Is there something you need from me?" Linkali asked. Nabooru smiled, nodding slowly. She turned back the window again, and after a moment of hesitation, the Hylian girl padded up beside her.

"I haven't forgotten," the Gerudo murmured at length. Lin looked over curiously. "When you first came to the Colossus, Lin, you had something you wanted to give to me, and you seemed very eager to have me take it." She inhaled deeply, releasing her breath in a slow sigh. "There's no denying you've made yourself very much at home among those of us here—and that's not a bad thing. We love having you with us." She glanced at the girl from the corner of her golden eyes. "Your mother raised you well."

"Thank you," Lin murmured, smiling. _Why do I get the feeling my mother would _love_ to meet you?_ she wondered privately. Both Halvara and Nabooru were tender and loving, but incredibly pragmatic and unable to be disobeyed.

"I've thought a lot about that little trinket of yours, and your eyes," Nabooru continued. "It all seems familiar to me somehow, but I can't put my finger on it—again, I'm probably just showing my age." She shook her head. "But that doesn't matter. I didn't call you in here to ask you about these things. I wanted to know if you're still eager to give me that little orange thing."

"Of course." Linkali dipped into her belt pouch and pulled it out. She cupped it in the palm of one hand, not holding it out to the Gerudo for fear of seeming too eager. Nabooru grinned, her yellow gaze darting from Medallion to Hylian.

"How about a trade?" she asked tactfully. Lin stared in confused silence. "An exchange. You do something for me—for all of the Gerudo, actually—and in return, I'll accept that little coin."

"I'll do it," Linkali replied, determination glowing in her blue eyes. Nabooru laughed, clearly pleased to see the youth so eager to take her bargain. "What do you want me to do?"

Nabooru placed one hand on the rim of her window and leaned out of it a bit, pointing to the Spirit Temple. Linkali stepped closer, leaning out beside her to get a better look at the towering monument. The former Sage of Spirit looked carefully at the young Hylian standing beside her. "Inside the Spirit Temple—deep, deep down—is an artifact known as the Mirror Shield," she explained. "It's a legendary item that can deflect any sort of magical attack thrown at it: blasts, curses, you name it. One of the traders across the Wasteland heard rumors of it as a boy, and has been searching for it his whole life; he says he'll pay any price for such an item. With an offer like that, I could ask for enough money to make the Gerudo here _and_ back at the Valley living just as comfortably as we were in days gone by—we'd never starve or suffer again." Lin turned away from the Temple to look at Nabooru. "You're a proven warrior, daughter, so I don't doubt you can do this. I want you to go into the Spirit Temple and bring back the Mirror Shield to me." She smiled. "Do _that_, and I'll happily accept that little orange coin you're so desperate to give me."

"That's all I have to do?" Linkali asked. Nabooru nodded. Carefully, the Hylian slipped the Spirit Medallion back into her pouch, then extended one hand towards the Gerudo. The two women shook hands firmly. "I'd need to get some supplies for exploring the Temple, but once I've taken care of that, I'll be glad to bring back the Mirror Shield."

Nabooru nodded again, the smile never leaving her face. "I have every confidence in you."

* * *

"Aliyah, do you think she's going to be all right?"

The Gerudo warrior looked down curiously at her apprentice, the one who had spoken. The two of them had woken up early to see Linkali off as she started into the Spirit Temple; the morning sun wasn't even over the eastern edge of the Wasteland yet, and more than once, the three young women had been forced to dodge a few Leevers as they churred through the sands of the Colossus. Bintu fidgeted nervously with the arms of her glasses, pausing when her mentor laid a gentle, tanned hand over her own. (That glasses-fiddling was what caused the nut to go missing the day Lin had come to the Colossus.)

"Bintu, would it honestly kill you to have a bit more faith in your sister?" Aliyah asked dryly. "No…she'll be just fine. She's not like the rest of her people." Bintu nodded, which sent one of the older Gerudo's eyebrows arching upwards. "Oh, like you have any basis for comparison?"

"Sorry…" Bintu murmured sheepishly.

"Don't be sorry," Aliyah said bluntly. "Just believe in her. She has what it takes to make it through the Spirit Temple in one piece." She paused. "Although…if she's thinking that it will be an easy task, she's in for a sick surprise." Bintu looked up at her fearfully as those words were spoken; Aliyah began to walk away, giving the Temple a glance over her shoulder. "There's a reason we're not allowed to train in that place anymore…"

**(1)Nabooru would have seen Link before she was awakened as the Sage of Spirit—he helped her get the Silver Gauntlets—hence why she recognizes Lin's eyes. However, she wouldn't remember him as the Hero, just some random kid who helped her out in the past. Since that makes him pretty nondescript in her mind, she doesn't remember much more than his distinctive his eyes were.**

**(2)I'd guess Nabooru was in her thirties in **_**Ocarina of Time**_**, which would put her in her 180's now.**

**(3)Bintu's glasses don't have a little curve at the end of the arm to hook behind her ears. They stay on her face because they've been tightened to fit the sides of her head****—so without the nut that holds the screw tight, they would be loose enough to slip off. I'm pretty sure that's the way glasses used to be styled; if not, well...Bintu's just weird. ;)  
**


	24. 23: Nabooru, Sage of Spirit

**Fun fact before we begin: The Spirit Temple is, so far, the only dungeon/temple Linkali has gone through that even remotely resembles what it does in the actual game. Creative liberties have, however, still been taken.**

Perhaps the first thing Lin had noticed when she stepped inside the Spirit Temple's doorway was how different it felt from any of the other Temples she had been in. The Forest Temple had felt steadfast and ancient, but still very full of life; the walls had radiated a subtle kind of energy. The Shadow Temple had been dark and dank, more a torture chamber than anything else—it had pulsed with haunted moans and reeked of old blood, and the thought of it still gave her chills. The Spirit Temple, however, had a certain aura of exoticism and timelessness. As she climbed the small flight of stairs leading into the Temple, Linkali couldn't shake the feeling that she had stepped into something mystical and strange; the sensation went deeper than the usual tingle of vague nostalgia she got whenever she walked through places the Hero had once traversed.

Turning to her right, the Hylian girl paused. She could hear, strangely enough, the hissing of water, perhaps a geyser of some sort. She followed the sound, and was startled to discover that there was indeed a jet of forceful water spraying up before her, blocking entrance into what looked like a smaller chamber that led deeper into the Temple's belly. Linkali didn't see any reasonable way to get past it now, but she kept the knowledge in mind. If there was one thing this quest to break the Sages' seals had taught her, it was that multiple paths of escape were a good thing to have. She might well see that room again, and the fact that it led back to the front of the Spirit Temple made it an important find. (The geyser was a definite roadblock, but she figured she would find something to help her clear it on the other side.)

"Can't go left," Lin murmured, glancing over her shoulder at the tiny tunnel that lay on the opposite side of the room. She began walking back to the center of the front hall. "Can't go right. Down is out of the question, so the only way left to go is…" She looked up, and mild surprise lit up her dark blue eyes. "Well. I think I can honestly say I wasn't expecting that."

"Is that…" Navi drifted up a little closer to the square hole in the ceiling, and the black and white object inside the shaft. "Lin, it's a Hookshot target."

"That's convenient," Linkali said. She spun her hands around to summon the weapon as her fairy partner zipped back down to join her. She took aim and fired the spring-loaded hook up at the target, smiling with satisfaction at the solid _thunk_ it made as it dug deeply into the bull's-eye. The girl managed to catch the rim of the shaft as the Hookshot released, and after setting the old weapon on the ground in front of her, she hoisted herself over the edge and sat down. Her feet—still clad in the light slippers she had borrowed from Aliyah; in fact, she was still wearing all of the clothes her friend had lent her—dangled over the red-carpeted floor below, though after watching them for a moment, she turned her attention to the deep gouges that marred the edge of the hole. "Looks like this is how the Gerudo would get into the Temple, too," she commented. Nabooru _had_ said that the thieves had gone after the Mirror Shield more than once over the years; they'd probably come in with grappling hooks in order to get to this point and start their explorations into the old shrine.

Not long after that, Linkali pushed herself to her feet and started off down the passageway before her. She'd brought with her some of the maps that the brave women who had attempted this same thing—retrieving the Mirror Shield—had drafted. She paused near the end of the passage, summoning one of the pieces of parchment to study it in Navi's pale blue glow. "Does the 'Room of the Goddess' mean anything to you?" she asked the fairy.

Navi hummed thoughtfully. "I do recall a large room fairly early on in the Temple," she admitted after a few moments. "Said room _did_ have a rather impressive statue of a woman—who I can only assume must be the Goddess of the Sand that the Gerudo always talk about."

"I think that room may be coming up next," Lin said, rolling up the map and banishing it calmly. "Or not. I've got about three different maps to look at. None of them are complete, and I'm not entirely sure _where_ the maker of one of them went when she made it, because her map looks nothing like the other two."

"So we're exploring blind?" Navi asked.

"Perhaps not so much _blind _as…moderately impaired." The young Hylian sighed and shrugged. "Well, it's not as if that's particularly new territory for either of us. Your memories of these Temples are fairly faded, and I've never seen the inside of any of the places we've explored before." And with that, she walked the last length of the corridor and stepped out into the next room waiting for her. "…All right, I see no statues—Goddess-like, or otherwise. This would not be the Room of the Goddess."

"Ah, Lin…?"

"What…Oh." Lin followed Navi up with her eyes. The room they had entered was fairly large, and almost completely dark. A few small (by Gerudo standards, at least) windows, carved out of the stone, shed some of the thin early morning light into the room. In that pale glow, Linkali caught a glimpse of what looked like the curve of a massive shoulder. Curious, she reached for the bow strapped to her hip, and pulled an arrow from the quiver attached to the other side; it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to grasp at the sleeping magic inside her, and the tip of her arrow began to glow brightly. The Hylian released her Light Arrow, watching the shaft as it sped away and scattered the darkness briefly. In the light of its radiant path, she saw the unmistakable curves of hips and breasts, as well as the intricate details of the clothing the impressive statue had been carved wearing. "Apparently, this _would_ be the Room of the Goddess."

"Tell me something," Navi began softly as the girl started to walk across the floor. "I've seen you do it more than once, and I'm honestly curious…Where exactly _did_ you learn to create Light Arrows?"

Linkali found that she was grateful for the darkness in the room, which would make it difficult for the fairy to read her soul-eyes…and for giving her an excuse to avoid mentioning the Warrior's Spirit. She stalled for a few seconds before whispering, "Can I tell you another time, Navi? It's just that it's dark here, and I'd like to attract as little attention as possible from things I can't see."

"So says the girl who just recently shot a blindingly bright arrow through the darkness," the fairy muttered, but did not press her partner further for information. Lin cringed a little inside, just as aware of the hypocrisy as Navi was. Fortunately, the blue woman was not one to hold a grudge, and before long, she was just as friendly and helpful as always. The girl who followed after her was honestly glad to have such a forgiving friend.

* * *

The Spirit Temple was nowhere near as forgiving as either of the other two Temples Linkali had braved thus far; even the merciless Shadow Temple seemed almost tame by comparison. The decision to disallow the Gerudo from training within the temple walls had not been made lightly—indeed, women had been mortally wounded and even _died_ there while seeking to further their warrior skills, victims of the monsters that stalked the halls and clustered in rooms. Lin was starting to realize, as time went on, that she might well be in over her head, despite the fact that she was far more competent in combat now than she had been when she had gone into monster-infested places for the sake of her destiny. Some of the creatures that threatened her were monsters she had never seen before in her life, and they seemed more vicious than any she had ever faced.

Floormasters—giant, disembodied hands—prowled the hallways and staircases like gruesome spiders, pouncing ruthlessly on their prey and squeezing tightly. (When attacked, they split into three smaller hands which clattered and skittered around aimlessly until they were finished off one by one.) There were shrieking lizards Navi called Dinalfos, scaly warriors whose plated armor discouraged attacks from most angles and whose wild slashes were difficult to dodge; there were Beamos, too, as there had been in the Rogons' Cavern, although these particular living statues were noticeably larger and took more than just a single bomb to destroy. If the sheer strength of these monsters wasn't enough to discourage exploration into the Spirit Temple, then their _numbers_ certainly were. The Hylian youth had difficulty finding a place where she could curl up and rest once night fell without having to fear a rude awakening from attacking monsters. That which _was_ safe was often uncomfortable as well, such as balling up in a small sheltered alcove, or perching atop a narrow flight of stone stairs that required a Hookshot to reach the first step.

Without much in the way of good, solid rest, Linkali found herself steadily slowing and weakening. She grew careless, and was often swatted around or thrown to the unforgiving stone floor. She held her tongue when it came to complaining, though, figuring that it wouldn't do her any real favors. In fact, the most she would offer in the way of complaint was a blunt mutter of "This is a _little_ harder than the Forest Temple" if her fairy partner expressed concern when she picked herself up off the ground. Lin knew that Navi was worried about her, and as their second day of fighting through the monster-infested Temple drew to a close, she almost seemed to want to turn back and find an alternative to breaking Nabooru's seal. But even if she had voiced that desire, her Hylian friend would have shot it down instantly.

As much as she wanted to complain, there was one thought that drew her onwards to complete this task, and that was the knowledge of what lay at the end of the road. Nabooru was the last Sage whose seal Lin had yet to break; the Spirit Medallion was alone in its pouch, thumping against the leather that surrounded it hollowly from time to time. The Hylian girl knew that after the last seal had been broken, the last Sage awakened, that her true purpose would be laid before her—the Master Sword would be repaired, and she would have to confront the Evil King himself. But that would worry her when the time came. She held onto that simple, shimmering hope more than ever: This was the last Temple whose belly she would be forced to crawl through for the sake of her quest. Nabooru was the final Sage. Once her seal was broken, the most grueling part of the young woman's quest would be ended at last.

But it wasn't just for the sake of unsealing another Sage that Linkali was doing this; she was doing it for the Gerudo, too. The desert women had helped her in more ways than she could count; they had given her direction, saved her life, taught her some of their ways, welcomed her in as a sister. That was a debt that was not going to go unpaid, and Lin knew that the Mirror Shield was the perfect payment for all their help. The stubborn girl was not about to be deterred.

* * *

"The good news," Linkali murmured as she rubbed wearily at her face with one hand, "is that I can't find this door on _any_ of the maps I was given. And Nabooru said that the ones she gave me are the only ones they had."

"That's good news?" the fairy asked, tipping her head curiously to the side.

"Think about it, Navi. None of the Gerudo who came into this Temple ever returned with the Mirror Shield in their possession," Lin explained. "At the same time, we have no records of this door or what's behind it, which means that it's never been explored; that, or those who did explore it either died or forgot its contents."

"You think the Mirror Shield might be in here?" Navi didn't sound doubtful; clearly, her partner's train of thought had caught her attention. Linkali shrugged, giving a tired smile.

"It might be, or this might lead to where it is." She turned her attention back to the door before them. "There's really only one way to find out, and that's to go and see for ourselves." Honestly, she wasn't quite sure how to explain the feeling of _familiarity_ that touched her when she looked at the door. Somehow, when she looked at the door before her, her mind instantly went to the Mirror Shield. Perhaps it was the Hero's memories playing into things again; if that was the case, Linkali wasn't about to complain. For once, those uncanny feelings of nostalgia were actually working to her favor—she was almost completely certain now that the artifact they sought was past this door somewhere.

"Just be careful, Lin," Navi warned. Her gentle blue glow took on a pale yellow cast and she trembled slightly, a sure sign that she sensed something less than friendly nearby. The Hylian girl glanced over both shoulders out of habit, then nodded and laid her hand against the door. It slid up, then slammed back down again once Hylian and fairy had stepped through its opening. The door had led into a long hallway that sloped upwards, with another door at its end. "There's something behind that other door—and it feels powerful."

"Worse than anything we've faced so far?" Lin asked, glancing at her partner out of the corner of her eyes. Navi balked. "If it's worse than Imparo, I'm going to seek an alternative to breaking Nabooru's seal."

"Few things in this land can compare to what Impa turned into," the fairy assured her. Though it went unspoken, the second part of her sentence was evident: _And once the Master Sword is restored, you'll be going up against one of them._ "I'm having trouble picking up exactly how strong it is—it almost feels like its dormant or something similar, which makes it difficult to gauge its power accurately—but I _can_ safely say that it's not a pushover."

"Great," muttered Linkali as she pressed her right hand against the second door to raise it. Her left went to her hip, and clasped the hilt of her sword in readiness. She spared the yellow-glowing fairy a swift glance. "Well, let's just get this over with."

The door led into a long, wide room with a single strip of thick red carpeting cutting a path down the length of it. Brick pillars stood on either side of the carpet, lining its course. Lin walked down the length of it with footsteps that were wary and light, their sound muffled all the more by the thick rug. The room was somewhat dark, lit by a few torches on the walls—the lack of light only made the young woman all the more tense, especially since Navi was scouting ahead of her, and her light was dim with wariness. She could see the flickering light glinting from time to time off of something shiny ahead, and the closer she got, the more nervous she became.

Two pairs of battleaxes, arranged together in _x_-shapes, hung on the wall at the end of the room, but that wasn't what made Linkali freeze in her tracks. No, what stopped her was Navi's reaction to what sat there waiting for her. At first glance, it almost looked like a suit of armor—a harmless heap of metal left by some careless warrior long ago. But the fairy didn't treat it like an abandoned pile of plating. The pale yellow glow radiating out from her intensified to a deep, warning shade of gold, and she zipped backwards in shock. "That's an Iron Knuckle!" she breathed, her whisper nearly lost in the thunderous clang as iron bars slammed down across the door behind them. Lin closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, releasing her breath in a long-suffering sigh. She'd been in situations much like this before. If she wanted to escape the room now, she was going to have to defeat whatever enemy came at her.

…Whenever said enemy decided to strike.

The young Hylian woman looked around swiftly as she drew her sword. Her dark blue eyes darted from wall to wall, an anxious glint sparking to life in her gaze. The room, aside from Navi's fizzing wings and Lin's own ragged breaths, was silent. She'd been in rooms that were perfectly quiet until some ambush was launched…but she'd also been in rooms that were perfectly quiet because there was no one else there.

"It looks like the Iron Knuckle is the only enemy you'll have to face here," Navi informed her quietly. "I can't sense anything other this."

"Is it going to…?"

"You have to strike first." The fairy shuddered. "I couldn't accurately gauge its power because it went dormant. If you want to fight it, you're going to have to strike it to waken it." She paused as Linkali began edging closer to the sleeping beast. As her friend's gentle glow reflected off the plated armor, the girl realized that she could see many spots of rust and worn patches. "Nayru only knows how long this one has been sitting here, though. Watch out for its axe attack—it hurts a lot! Strike when it drops its guard!"

Lin appreciated getting that little tidbit of advice _before_ the start of the battle; with a shout, she lunged at the Iron Knuckle and brought the blade of her sword clanging down against its armor. She barely had enough time to stumble back as the armored creature rose from its seat and began to advance steadily in her direction. Its heavy steps were loud and clamorous, clanking noisily as each foot fell. _Din's fires, you could fight this thing blind, so long as you weren't deaf as well._ Linkali shuffled backwards, away from the approaching Iron Knuckle. Her blue eyes tracked its arms carefully, noting how it drew back to raise its axe. The girl's tired mind made her a little more heedless than usual; she assumed she could strike while its arms were raised, and darted in to strike.

"_Lin, no!"_

Navi's cry of warning came too late. The Kokorian girl was close enough to attack, and unfortunately for her, the Iron Knuckle was already prepared to do just that. The creature swung its hefty axe downwards with a low, thunderous grunt. Linkali screeched as she felt the cold flat of the weapon slam into her bare back. Its edge did not slice into her skin, but the blow was enough to send her _flying_ across the room. She landed roughly on her belly several feet away, breathless and wincing. She hadn't heard anything snap or break, but her ribs were certainly sorer than they'd ever been in her memory. The young warrior shoved herself back onto her feet and rushed clumsily over to retrieve her sword, which had been knocked from her grip on impact and had skidded across the stone floor for a fair distance. She could hear the Iron Knuckle continuing its advance behind her and turned to face it once she had her weapon back in her grasp.

"Holy _Din_, that hurt and it didn't even _cut_ me!" she hissed, rubbing her ribs tenderly. She paused for a few seconds while Navi hovered close and inspected the sore area.

"I can't feel any sort of deeper injury," the fairy informed her. Linkali nodded briskly and continued to edge back away from the Iron Knuckle. The armored monster hadn't taken advantage of the girl's momentary stop; it had kept advancing at the same pace as before without speeding up to corner its prey. Its heavy armor seemed to be keeping it from moving any faster than its slow, clanking gait. "Looks like you managed to escape that without any real harm done, Lin."

The Hylian youth nodded shortly, not willing to waste any of her breath on idle words. She watched her opponent draw back to strike again, and held her ground. When the Iron Knuckle's axe came swinging down, Lin gathered herself up for her strike. Ignoring the pain in her chest, she lunged forward and brought her sword forward. Navi screamed in panic. "No, don't attack it now! The Iron Knuckle strikes—"

The word _twice_ was drowned out both by the Iron Knuckle's rumbling grunt of exertion and Linkali's own yelp of shock as she was knocked through the air. The second swipe had caught her off her guard—the haft of the axe slammed into her stomach—and sent her flying again. The young woman struck the wall of the room hard with both her back and head, and dropped to the floor without even trying to catch herself and stay on her feet. She lay there, limp and unmoving, stunned by the sudden impact. Navi darted down low and shook Lin's shoulder, trying desperately to rouse the girl while her armored enemy came closer and closer. Her half-open, dark blue eyes were dull and unfocused; she gave no sign that she even heard her fairy friend's panicked cries. Minutes ticked past like hours for Navi as she struggled to snap Linkali out of her semiconscious state, and the steady _clank_ of the Knuckle's feet seemed to grow louder with each passing second.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of terror for Navi, the young Hylian huddled at the foot of the wall twitched and gave voice to a soft whimper. Lin blinked hard, squeezing her eyes tightly in a vain attempt to stave off the dizziness that clung to her. The whole room seemed to be spinning and vaulting wildly beneath her, making it all but impossible for her to rise to her feet—something that Navi was all but _begging_ her to do now. The young warrior pushed herself slowly off the floor, swaying perilously with a quiet moan. She pushed her shoulder against the wall and used that as a way to help stabilize herself while the room whirled maddeningly around her. The air rumbled ominously, like the thunder of a coming storm—Linkali tensed reflexively in fright at the comparison. Her eyes snapped open just in time to see the Iron Knuckle raise its axe to strike her. In a split second of terrifying mental clarity, the Hylian realized that she could see herself reflected perfectly in the blade of the heavy weapon, down to the pure fear that filled her eyes. The instant after she came to this realization, the axe began to fall.

With a panicked shriek, Linkali staggered backwards across a floor that seemed to be rising and falling crazily beneath her feet. The first blow sliced through the air in front of her with frightening speed, the axe blade a terrifying flash of reflected light to match the thunderous grunt of the monster that wielded it. Still unsteady, Lin scrambled clumsily to the side in a desperate bid to escape the Iron Knuckle. Its low, growling voice shook the air behind her, and a split second later, a line of unbearably sharp fire burned into life along her right arm. The force behind the second swipe sent her sprawling to the floor once again. The girl reached up on reflex and clutched her arm tightly, her mouth falling open a few inches as she realized she was _bleeding_. The cut was long and wound up along her upper arm, curving around her biceps from back to front—the Iron Knuckle's blow had sent her reeling _while_ it was still wounding her, resulting in the strange path of injury.

As undesirable as being injured before even landing a single blow was, Lin had to admit that the pain did have a surprising mind-clearing effect. The room was still spinning beneath her feet, but she could _think_ now. She released the grip on her wounded arm, wiping the worst of the blood from her hand onto her pants, and grabbed her sword again. The Iron Knuckle hadn't even changed its course. It continued clanking steadily towards her, just as it had before.

Right. It attacks twice, does it? Linkali watched the monster's progress with a calculating gleam in her eyes. _Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank._ Her balance deserted her suddenly, and she swayed visibly on her feet before steadying herself with one hand against a pillar. _Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank._ Merciful Goddesses, this would be so much easier if she weren't so damn dizzy! _Clank. Creak. _The Iron Knuckle's deep, bass grunt shook the ground as it hefted its axe. Lin inhaled sharply, holding her breath as she reeled backwards. Her left arm came up to shield her eyes as the armored brute's weapon shattered the stone column as if it were nothing. She lowered her arm just in time to see its second blow sweep through the air, and on a reflex, she gripped her sword tighter and lunged in. She honestly feared that the blade would clang harmlessly off of the Iron Knuckle's plated body, but much to her amazement, the beast actually _groaned_ and fell back a pace. The Hylian girl stumbled backwards, her eyes wide with surprise.

The Iron Knuckle turned slowly to face the young warrior shambling around behind it, and resumed its steady march. Its rhythmic footsteps seemed to sync eerily with the heaving and falling of the floor, a match in beats that only made Lin all the more light-headed. (Thanks to her experiences hillboarding, she was no stranger to head trauma; though she did not remember hitting the wall, she knew she had, and knew that that was why she was so unbalanced right now.) Her steps were hesitant and uncertain as she backed away from the approaching enemy. She followed its arm with her eyes as it moved to swipe again, trying to ignore the sharp, slicing pain in her own arm. The first blow landed, and as the Knuckle was pulling back, the girl began stumbling around the side of it. Her eyes jolted open wide with surprise as she saw the massive axe thud down deeply into the stone floor, leaving its wielder vulnerable to attack until it was pulled free.

Linkali took in a long, slow breath to try and steady herself. She bit her lower lip and fought to center her balance, now more than ever. The Iron Knuckle was virtually at her mercy, and she didn't know how much longer that would last. Directing some half-thought prayer to any Goddess who happened to be listening—perhaps even the Goddess of the Sand inside whose Temple she now battled and bled—Lin nerved her arm and hurled herself wildly at the armored creature. Her first blow landed with enough ferocity to make the Iron Knuckle grunt in pain, and much to her surprise, some of its plated armor fell away. Common sense should have told her to flee at that point; if the young woman even _had_ such sense to begin with, she ignored it now. Instead, she launched a desperate assault on the beast in front of her, hacking crazily. More often than not, her blows glanced off harmlessly, but she managed to land two more before the Iron Knuckle turned and caught her again with the long shaft of its axe. The Hylian girl skidded across the floor, gritting her teeth stubbornly against the pain and forcing herself to her feet when she stopped moving.

As its armor had fallen away, the Knuckle had grown faster. Its footsteps clanged through the air with greater frequency now as it advanced on its attacker. Lin watched it warily, edging around it on shaky legs. Her own footfalls were painful hesitant; she seemed to test the floor with the tips of her toes before laying her foot down on it, as if she expected it to drop out from under her at any moment. The Iron Knuckle's swings had grown faster as well, making it all the more dangerous to try and evade. Linkali frowned thoughtfully. A surprising insight struck her at that moment, and after directing a quick prayer to every Goddess she could think to name, she sheathed her sword.

Just as Navi was drawing in breath to ask _why_ her young partner had apparently disarmed herself, Lin closed her eyes and spun her hands around in a swift circle. The fiery pain that lanced up her right arm at the motion nearly made her drop the object that fell into her waiting grasp, but she clenched her teeth and held on. With the Iron Knuckle still advancing on her, she drew in a deep breath, cocked back her left arm, and hurled the bomb she had summoned at her opponent. The explosive did not fail her; it burst with a violent _boom!_ on the armored monster's chest and knocked a few more plates of rust-flecked metal from its body. Linkali didn't stop exult that small victory. Her hands cycled around each other a second time, summoning another bomb. She flung it at the Iron Knuckle before the second spike of pain from her injured arm could make her hesitate.

The second bomb exploded just as violently as the first, but with far more impressive results. The Iron Knuckle came to a complete halt as more of its plated armor went tumbling to the stone floor. Just like the other fallen plates, they dissolved into ethereal blue fire…and the creature that had worn them vanished with them. Linkali, clutching her injured arm tightly, turned in the direction of the throne where her opponent had sat before the battle's start; she saw the glint of metal as the bars protecting the door behind it slid up, opening her path. Then, and only then, did she succumb, dropping to her knees on the red strip of carpet. "Done," she whispered weakly, managing a timid smile.

Now that the adrenaline rush was starting to fade, the young Hylian realized that she was _very_ shaky; the room seemed to spin all the more wildly around her as her head pounded. She was starting to feel a little cold, too. Navi dipped down to hover by her arm. "Let me look," the fairy ordered gently. Linkali nodded and carefully unwrapped her hand from around the wound. Trickles of red ran down the length of the girl's forearm, their winding trails strangely bright against her pale skin. Blood coated most of her upper arm in a thin patina—spread around by her clenched hand—but it was still oozing freely from the injury itself. Navi hissed softly. "That looks deep. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do for you, but I'll do my best."

Lin nodded silently. Though Forest fairies like Navi had the ability to heal, that power was mainly limited to the scrapes and small cuts that could be accrued by small children running around heedlessly at play. For a true injury like this one, the blue woman's power might not be enough to fully restore it. Linkali hissed softly in pain as she felt her partner set to work; Navi's hands were gentle, but like every other healer's power she had felt so far, it burned in some small way. After a few moments, the fairy drifted back slightly, rubbing her reddened hands together. "It's still bleeding," she informed sadly, her words somewhat breathless; she'd given everything she had, but it hadn't been enough. "Not nearly as much as before, but…"

"I have"—Lin reached into her belt pouch with her left hand, fumbling around until she was able to produce a wad of linen bandages—"these. Aliyah gave them to me before we left. I have more, but…" But she had banished them, and if her experience summoning the bombs earlier were any indicator, then moving her injured arm was only going to end in more pain. Navi seemed to understand, and nodded without comment. She helped Linkali wind the cloth tightly around the wound, sighing as she watched her Hylian partner swaying dizzily where she sat.

"Lin, why don't you lie down?" she asked gently. The youth blinked up at her, her blue eyes somewhat hazy with fatigue and so many other things. "This is likely the safest place we're going to find in this Temple—if you were going to rest anywhere, it should probably be here."

Slowly, Linkali nodded in agreement. She pushed herself to her feet, staggering slightly as she pulled herself fully upright, and stumbled over to a corner of the room. With a quiet sigh, she curled herself into a ball on the hard stone floor and closed her eyes.

* * *

Sleep did not come easily to the weary warrior. The pounding of her head—both the knot that marked the place where she had struck the wall and the headache from the same event—made it difficult for her to drift off, or even stay asleep when she managed to. As the hours ticked past slowly, the pitching and dropping of the floor faded away, but until they did, Lin was nauseous and unable to fully settle down. Not to mention the fact that the stone floor beneath her aching body didn't really lend itself to settling against. Between all of that _and_ the steady throb of her wounded arm, the girl had a hard time getting any sort of rest, tired though she was.

With a frustrated sigh, Linkali shoved herself one-armed off the ground. Her right arm was tucked up against her side protectively, as if carried in a sling. "It's probably going to be best if I wait until I'm out of this place to sleep," the girl muttered. She'd gotten some rest, but nowhere near as much as she wanted or needed. "Let's…let's see what was behind that other door."

As she made her way to the door behind the stone throne, Lin checked on her arm. Clearly it had stopped bleeding at some point while she had tried to sleep; not only was she still alive, but the bandages were splashed with rust-colored blood. She wasn't about to touch it to see if it was dried—the area was incredibly tender—but it didn't seem to be life-threatening. The thin trails of brown blood still wound their ways down her forearm, and rubbing at them only brushed away so much. Add that to the brown patch where she had wiped her hand on her thigh to clean the worst of the blood from it, and the dark circles under her eyes from lack of rest, and the Hylian girl looked rather rough. She sighed. Well, _this_ was certainly going to be a sight when she took the Mirror Shield back to the Gerudo. _If you find it,_ some part of her thought rebelliously, but she ignored it. No, the artifact she sought was up ahead—she was more than sure of it now. Something, some gut instinct, told her that she was close to finding the Mirror Shield.

Linkali pressed her hand against the door to slide it up, stepping through it with Navi bobbing through the air beside her. It led into a dark passageway, the air inside of which was almost unbearably hot and dry, with a brilliant light at the opposite end. Her slow footsteps echoed hollowly against her ears as the Hylian youth made her way along the passage. The closer she drew to the other end, the brighter the light grew and the hotter the air got. Her dark blue eyes narrowed until they were nearly shut, Lin stepped out of the tunnel and fully into the light. After a few minutes of squinting against a harsh glare that only made her head pound all the harder, she cracked her eyes open a little wider. Almost instantly, she drew back slightly with a gasp of amazement.

The Desert Colossus seemed to lay itself out at her feet, spreading beneath her as if she were the ruler of it all. She was standing on the carved-stone hand of the Gerudo's own Goddess of the Sand, looking down at the sheltered grotto and the lands that surrounded it. Peering out into the distance, Linkali realized she could see a dark blur that was sure to be the Gerudo Fortress, all the way across the Haunted Wasteland. Despite her weariness, and the pain that plagued her, Lin found that she felt…strangely empowered. Standing above everything, able to see for miles—some part of her was honestly strengthened by this moment. A tired smile worked its way across her face, and for a few minutes, all she really did was stand with one hand against the side of the passageway. Then, she heard Navi say her name quietly. She turned to look curiously at her fairy friend.

"You were right," Navi told her softly. The fairy's glow dimmed slightly as she dipped lower to stand on the rounded top of the wooden chest behind Linkali. "I…I remember this now. This view…it's not a view you can ever forget, and I remember it." The tiny woman knelt down, patting the chest with one hand. "The Mirror Shield is right here, unless something has been drastically changed."

Turning away from the impressive vista beneath her, Lin studied the wooden trunk with a strange half-smile. With her left hand, she unsnapped the clips that held the lid closed and pushed the chest open. The lid creaked upwards on aged hinges to reveal…an absolutely _blinding_ glare of brilliant, reflected light. Linkali cried out as the light struck her, stumbling slightly and falling—thank the Goddesses—to the _side_ instead of _behind_, where she would have found nothing but the empty air above the Colossus. She lay on her back, blinking wide-eyed above her. She could hear Navi fizzing and darting above her head…but she couldn't actually see the fairy. For the time being, the Hylian girl was almost completely blinded, save for a small strip at the bottom and sides of her vision where the reflected light from the Mirror Shield had not struck her. Most of what lay in front of her was completely blotted out by the dazzling afterimages. **(1)**

Linkali lay there silently while she waited for her vision to return. Some part of her was deeply irritated by this—as if she didn't already have _enough_ to complain about, now she was blind, too—but for the most part, she was just too tired to be angry. There was nothing she could really do now but wait, and that was what she did. Slowly, the afterimages that clouded her sight began to fade away, shrinking and thinning as her eyes recovered from the sudden burst of light. Lin pushed herself up one-armed and turned her head to the side, glancing at the chest in her peripheral vision. She could see the column of reflected radiance that had dazzled her eyes, and after a few moments, she reached into the chest and turned the shield over. (It took a good bit of effort, because the shield was somewhat heavy, and the girl moving it really only had the use of one hand.)

Once the blank space in front of her vision had cleared, the young Hylian reached again into the chest, and slipped her good arm through the straps on the back of the Mirror Shield, hefting it experimentally. "This is going to be fun to carry," she muttered dryly. This was her first time actually carrying a shield, and she could already tell it wasn't something she enjoyed. The metal weighed her arm down, and seemed to pull her to the side she carried it on. (But, in a way, the weight almost felt good; it was a reminder that she had done what no Gerudo exploring the Temple had yet managed to do, and that once she brought the shield back, she would break the seal on the final Sage.) Gritting her teeth, Linkali turned back towards the tunnel that led back into the Spirit Temple. "We have what we came for," she told Navi. "All we need to do now is get it back out of here."

_But how?_ Lin wasn't sure she would be able to get out of the Temple the same way she had gotten _in_. That would entail her leaping down about fifteen feet, never mind working her way back through the entire Temple just to get back to that one spot. There had to be another way, perhaps a better way for her to do this. The girl's mind flicked to the front room of the Spirit Temple, in particular to the geyser that had blocked her progress before. There was a room behind that column of water—Linkali only needed to figure out how to reach that room.

Her feet led her back into the Spirit Temple, and from there, she began her search for the passage she _knew_ had to be there—the passage that would lead her back towards the front of the Temple. The going wasn't easy, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as it had been coming _into_ this place. Linkali knew more about the monsters that stalked the halls now, and she had an idea of how to avoid engaging them. A couple of times, she did find herself unable to completely evade conflict; the girl was forced to drop the Mirror Shield hastily and reach for her sword (or else cringe and grit her teeth when she was forced to summon an item to fight with). Doggedly, she worked her way back through the passages and rooms, trying to find the path that would lead her back out of the Temple once more.

As she stepped into one of the rooms she hadn't entered on her way into the Spirit Temple, Linkali became aware of a faint hissing sound further ahead. The sound grew louder and louder as she stumbled through the room. The young woman glanced curiously up at Navi; it was clear that her fairy partner heard the sound as well. Narrowly dodging the sliding, spiked floor traps, Lin made her way toward the noise while Navi bobbed through the air beside her.

_The geyser._

Lin was now extremely glad she'd noticed it when she had first set foot into the ancient stone shrine, because it was, just as she had expected, her way out. She nearly broke down into tears of relief. She could even catch a glimpse of the front room of the Temple in the thin space between the geyser and the hall it obstructed. The Hylian youth stepped slowly towards the column of rushing water, looking up and down it, her happiness tinged with uncertainty. All well and good, but…how was she going to get past it? Linkali bit her lower lip, swaying unsteadily on her feet as she had to wonder if she'd found this beautiful route to freedom and _couldn't even use it._ She couldn't very well step into the tireless column—even if she could push her way into it, the geyser would throw her up and batter her against the top of the hall. There wasn't enough room for her to squeeze past it, either. Every way she looked at it, it seemed to be a dead end.

"Lin!"

Something in the fairy's voice told Linkali that her partner had been trying to get her attention for a few minutes by now; whether it was the hiss and gush of the water or her own tiredness that had kept her from hearing, Lin couldn't say for sure. The girl jerked around to look at the fairy, blinking slowly. Navi swooped a little closer and hovered in front of her face. "Lin, there's a switch back here," she said softly, drawing back to point the way. "It's rusted badly, so I don't think your weight alone will be able to press it down…but it probably controls that geyser."

The young warrior stepped over to the spot Navi had indicated, wavering slightly with each step she took. Sure enough, just as her fairy friend had said, there was a heavily rusted, platform-like switch. Lin eyed it critically, shaking her head slowly and glancing out of the corner of her tired blue eyes at Navi. "I…I didn't even…" she began, but the fairy cut her off gently with a light hand on her cheek.

"It's all right," she soothed. "You're tired. It's easy to miss things when you're as weary as you are right now." Linkali nodded. "This is the last challenge we have to face, and then we can get out of here and find you someplace safe to rest."

The thought of settling down and actually being able to rest was a luring promise. Lin smiled slightly, the stubborn gleam entering her eyes once more. Looking at the switch, it was plain to see that her weight would not push it down heavily enough. She closed her eyes and set the Mirror Shield down on the sandstone floor beside her feet. Doubtless, she had enough magic to do this, but the thought of what it would do to her arm made her hesitate for a moment. _It's the only way,_ the young woman told herself stubbornly. _I just have to endure. I can do this—it's almost over. Once I get past this, I can give the shield _and_ the last Medallion to Nabooru, and then I'll be done.__  
_

Gritting her teeth against the ripping pain that was sure to come, Linkali cycled her hands around each other and grasped the heavy object that fell into them. A ragged gasp tore its way out of her throat at the blinding sheet of agony that sliced over her wounded arm. Goddess Din, she couldn't hold this thing for long! She could feel the wound on her upper arm rip open anew at the sudden stretch and strain it endured, and felt a course of fresh blood spring out from it. Without wasting any motions, the Hylian girl pivoted on her heels, slammed the Megaton Hammer down on the rusted switch, and used the blow's recoil to help her banish the weapon once more.

Just as when Ruto had laid hands on her after the second fight with Impa's corrupted form, Lin felt herself begin to slip into a blind sort of panic. Her body went into a near-primal state of mind, and she barely had enough time to snatch the dropped shield off the ground before taking off at a wild sprint. Navi darted behind the Hylian as she dashed frantically towards the hall where the geyser had once surged and hissed. Linkali sprinted through the dampened corridor, splashing through puddles and sliding over the wet stones on the floor. No sooner had she made it over the space where the now-silenced geyser had its origins than her feet slid, sending her flying. The Mirror Shield leapt from her hands, falling with a clang that was somewhat muffled by the old red carpet it had landed on top of. The young woman who had dropped it, however, did not land quite so gently. Her bruised chest slammed down on the stone floor, though she was too breathless from her panicked run to manage much more than a quiet _huhn!_ of air. Behind her, the geyser hissed back into life, cutting off the path back into the belly of the Spirit Temple once more.

Linkali lay there, gasping in pain and residual terror, quivering all over. She pressed her cheek against the dusty, gritty floor of the Temple and struggled to calm herself. Navi settled down beside her, stroking her face gently and whispering quiet comforts. The girl wasn't sure how long she lay there, but after a time, she pushed herself up from the ground and looked over at the Mirror Shield. All that was left to do now was take it back to the Gerudo. Smiling grimly, Lin crossed the floor and slipped her left arm into the strap. With a glance at Navi, she made her way once more towards the entrance of the Spirit Temple, and stepped back out into the Desert Colossus.

"Goddess of the Sand, sister! You made it out alive!"

Lin balked at the sudden voice, blinking in the semi-twilight that covered the arid land. She didn't know, nor did she really care at the moment, who had cried out at the sight of her. (She would later learn that Nabooru had posted guards in front of the Spirit Temple ever since the youth had gone in, so that if Linkali _did_ make it out alive, someone would be there to help her out if need be.) The Hylian girl swayed dangerously on her feet, and the Gerudo who had spoken darted forward to steady her. Those bright yellow eyes widened in shock at the sight of what Linkali held, and the woman supporting her gasped raggedly. "Is that…? Sister, you _found_ it!"

"Nabooru," Lin breathed, and the tanned woman nodded.

"All in due time," she assured calmly, though her voice was shaking with excitement. She carefully slipped the Mirror Shield off Linkali's arm and onto her own, grinning at the weight of the long sought-after artifact. She hesitated, looking over the young woman carefully. "First off, someone needs to take a look at your arm."

"It's fine," Linkali panted back, shaking her head. Once she broke Nabooru's seal, she could get Ruto to look at her arm, and the Water Sage would be able to heal the wound in a matter of minutes, if that long. Sure, it was likely to hurt more than a Gerudo nurse's touch, but the pain would be shorter-lived. "I need to see her. Nabooru."

"All right, all right." The woman snaked her arm around Lin's waist and pulled her close. "Lean on me, sister, and we'll get you to meet with Mother Nabooru."

* * *

Nabooru was waiting for them when they entered the hollowed stone wall that housed the Gerudo, with the rest of the desert warriors standing behind her. Someone had heard the excited shouts of the woman who had been stationed outside the Spirit Temple, and had informed the Gerudo leader that Linkali had made it back from the deadly Temple alive…and with the Mirror Shield! Lin's tired eyes scanned the ranks swiftly before focusing on the sealed Sage of Spirit; she saw Bintu practically leaping out of her skin with excitement, and Aliyah eyeing her with wonder and an all-new degree of respect. Even dour Sabu seemed amazed enough that her typical scowl had lifted. Nabooru stepped forward calmly, wrapping her dark arms around Linkali gently and pressing the girl against her warm heart. "Daughter, you are unbe_liev_able ," she whispered in the Hylian's pointed ear. Her golden eyes glittered as she stepped back slightly, still holding Lin's uninjured arm gently. "I believe you and I had a bargain, did we not?" Linkali smiled weakly. "Although, if you'd rather rest—perhaps have someone look at your wounds—before we finalize the deal, I understand."

"I'll be fine," Lin said softly, still managing her weary grin. "We can do this now, if you're willing."

Perhaps if she had been a little better rested and thinking more clearly, Linkali would have realized that breaking Nabooru's seal in front of the rest of the Gerudo might not have been the best idea. The women almost certainly would not have understood what they were seeing, and would have assumed the worst. But the young Hylian wasn't as aware of these possibilities as she could have been. She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out the Spirit Medallion, running her fingers over the patterned surface one last time. Nabooru smiled warmly, her yellow eyes nearly lost in the wrinkles her grin pushed up around them, and extended one of her long-fingered hands. Lin flipped her own palm upwards so that all could see the orange object she held before she passed it calmly over to the Gerudo leader.

Nabooru examined the Medallion with interest, weighing it experimentally in her hand. She pinched it carefully between her thumb and first two fingers, and lifted it closer to her eyes. As she was opening her mouth to ask Linkali something, the Spirit Medallion melted away and almost seemed to soak into the woman's dark skin, disappearing without a trace. Nabooru balked, her golden eyes flicking over to look at Lin with curiosity tempered with suspicion. She opened her mouth—likely to ask what had happened to the object—and let loose with a scream of shock. Blinding, silver light pulsed out from her, flooding the stone room in the Colossus with its radiance. When Nabooru's screech cut off, the shouts of the rest of the Gerudo filled the air.

Linkali flinched, expecting to be tackled to the ground and restrained. That almost seemed like a possibility until a sharp, commanding voice rang out through the stone dwelling. "Stop! None of you lay a hand on your sister!"

Cautiously, the Hylian girl eased out of her cringe and stared in amazement. There was an unfamiliar woman standing in front of her, arms flung out protectively. Her tawny skin was smooth, and the muscles it stretched over were toned and well-formed; her hair was a deep scarlet red, and hung down from the ponytail on the top of her head in a long, straight flow. Lin stared, confused, until the woman—who didn't seem to be all that much older than herself—turned over her shoulder with a grin. It was Nabooru, restored to the body she had held so many years ago in the Hero's days. Gently, the Sage of Spirit slipped her hand under Linkali's cheek, turning it slowly so that the girl's face was towards her. She smiled. "Now I remember where I've seen those eyes of yours," she murmured.

"M-mother Nabooru?" Bintu crept forward, pushing her glasses further up her nose and blinking in stunned awe at the beautiful Gerudo standing before her. Nabooru smiled; she bent down and scooped the girl up off the floor, balancing her on her hip. "What did she do to you?"

"She awakened me." Nabooru stroked Bintu's hair tenderly before looking at the rest of her people. Her smile took on an edge that was visibly sad. "It pains me to have to leave all of you, but I have to. Your sister Lin returned an item to me that reminded me of who I was—of who I _am_. She needs my help, and the help of the rest of the Sages."

"How do we know that's true?" Sabu stepped forward, her typical scowl back on her face. "How do we know that thing she just handed you wasn't cursed? How do we know that you're doing this of your own will?" She turned her venomous stare to Linkali, but the girl was too tired to even wince at the fiery anger directed at her.

Nabooru grinned. "Sabu, daughter, there is no real way that I could prove it to you," she admitted; Sabu's dark frown was tempered with disbelief and something like pain. "But Lin will prove it in time." She glanced at the Kokorian girl, then back to the tanned woman standing before her. "She is destined to bring down that traitor who calls himself a King. With my help, and the help of the other Sages, she will be able to free Hyrule from his grasp." The Sage stepped forward and rested a gentle hand on Sabu's shoulder. "Patience and trust have never been your greatest attributes, Sabu," she murmured, "but just this once, I ask you to put faith in something that may not immediately be visible."

"I believe you, Mother Nabooru," Bintu piped up, wrapping her arms around the Sage of Spirit's neck affectionately. Nabooru grinned, holding the girl close.

"Thank you, Bintu," she said. When the young Gerudo released her hug, so did Nabooru, and after a moment, she set Bintu back on the floor. "I have to leave you now," she said sadly. Her golden eyes flicked over to a particular woman in the group. "Aisha, you're in charge from now on. You've been my second-in-command for several years now, and I have no doubt that you will be able to guide our sisters down the right paths." She smiled as Aisha nodded dutifully, then turned back to look at Linkali. "Sorry to keep you waiting, daughter," she apologized. Stepping closer, she held out her hand. "Let's see about meeting the others."

Lin hesitated briefly, her eyes flicking over the Gerudo momentarily. These women were her friends—her _sisters_—and some part of her wondered if she would ever see them again. Her eyes fell to Aliyah and Bintu, and she grinned. She'd find a way. She _had_ to find a way. Bintu grinned brightly. "Come back and visit us soon, sister!" she called. As if that had been the signal, the rest of the desert women began to offer their own well-wishes; after a moment of hesitation, even Sabu muttered something that sounded vaguely like a farewell. Linkali let them wash over her in a warm tide, smiling. Nabooru glanced over her shoulder at the others with a warm grin, and held out her hand to Lin. The Hylian youth took it and closed her eyes, feeling herself begin to speed away.

**(1) I always wondered why something like this doesn't happen when you go to get the Mirror Shield during the day. I mean, we all know it's **_**shiny**_**, and the sun over the desert isn't exactly weak…**


	25. 24: The Seventh Sage

When Lin next opened her eyes, she was standing on the soft grass of the Sacred Realm. Nabooru released her gentle grip on the Hylian, settling her hands on her hips and inhaling deeply. After a few seconds, she turned to look at Linkali, who was standing beside her with drooping shoulders and one hand edging towards her wounded arm. The Gerudo woman's smile dimmed swiftly, and her crimson brows pushed together with concern. "We should let Ruto take a look at that," she said softly. The young Hylian nodded silently in agreement.

"Nabooru!"

The Spirit Sage's name carried through the calm, warm air. Nabooru whipped around to see Saria sprinting towards her at full tilt. The tiny Kokiri sprang like a pouncing fox kit into Nabooru's waiting arms; the tanned warrior held her close, embracing her just as tightly as Saria held her. "I missed you!" the Forest Sage cried.

"Saria, you miss everyone who isn't inside your hug radius," Nabooru teased. She looked up as the rest of the Sages approached, grinning broadly. Darunia offered the Gerudo a smile that was as warm as the fiery heart of Death Mountain. Impa was also smiling lightly in welcome, and Rauru pumped his arms happily at the sight of the sixth Sage.

Ruto, however, seemed to ignore Nabooru completely; she made a beeline for Linkali, grasping the girl's arm firmly to prevent escape as she unwound the bandage. Lin flinched and made a vain attempt to pull away until Ruto figured out how to handle her a little more gently. It didn't do her any good; the Water Sage's grip was like iron. She was forced to stand there, cringing as the strip of cloth pulled away from her skin. The Zora sighed softly at the sight of the raw wound, shaking her head. "Merciful Jabu-Jabu, child," she murmured as she studied the girl's arm. Linkali cringed impressively as Ruto laid a cool-scaled, webbed hand over the wound. She gritted her teeth against the impending pain of the finned woman's healing magic, but yelped anyway when it hit her. Ruto released her arm once the healing was completed, and her patient stumbled back unsteadily. Impa turned on her heel and caught the Hylian youth deftly, steadying her.

"You look rather pale," the Sheikah noted, though there was a deeper edge of concern to her voice than her calm face suggested. "Stretched a little thin, as they say."

"I haven't been getting much sleep," Linkali replied bluntly. She reached up and rubbed at her eyes, sighing as she stepped away from Impa's gentle hands. Her dark blue eyes were glazed with weariness; her head was still pounding dully from the fight with the Iron Knuckle, and from the sleepless nights she had spent in the Spirit Temple. Lin felt the Sage of Shadow rest a hand on her shoulder in comfort. "I got slammed around a bit more than I wanted to in that place."

"If I'd known who you were, I would never have sent you into the Spirit Temple, at least not alone," Nabooru muttered uncomfortably. "And even though I did send you in, I doubted my decision until I saw your face again. I'd already allowed enough of my sisters to put their lives at risk, and I had no right to put someone else's daughter in such danger, even if I thought she would come out safely again."

"You had no way of knowing who I was," Lin pointed out, one hand reaching up to rub the back of her head tenderly. "And I'm not about to hold it against you." She grinned weakly. "Besides…" Her hand went to her belt, and she undid the strap that held the now-empty pouch to it. With a grand gesture, the young woman opened the pouch and shook it out into her hand. Laughing, she tossed the small leather bag into the air. "I'm done! That was every last Sage!"

That was the relief that she had been holding out for. That was what she had been going on in the darkest of dungeons and Temples. This moment was what had kept her going through the Spirit Temple, despite being clawed and chased and thrown from wall to wall. It wasn't the end of the battle against the Evil King, but it was certainly the end of the first and longest part of her quest. With all the Sages' seals broken, the Master Sword could finally be restored. Linkali had gone to unbelievable lengths to seek out the Six Sages, return their Medallions, and gather them together. And now she was finished. She'd never have to go creeping through another Temple, risking life and limb with no one but a tiny fairy to aid her should the situation turn foul. She had awakened all of—

"No." Lin balked, turning to stare incredulously at Impa. "One more Sage remains." The Sage of Shadow didn't seem regretful, even though she had just told Hyrule's would-be liberator that she indeed had more work to complete…which bothered the young woman considerably.

A dark, smoldering burn glowed in her eyes as she glared at the Sheikah. One hand rose, pinching together its thumb and forefinger. "Oh, that's right," Linkali growled bitterly. "Silly me. I seem to have forgotten the Invisible and Intangible Medallion." Tearing her eyes from Impa, she glared at Nabooru, who took on an expression of startled concern. She thrust her pinched fingers towards the Sage of Spirit as if holding out a Medallion. "Here. Why don't _you_ tell me where I should start looking for the _real_ last Sage? Or are there six more who don't have Medallions that I need to bring here as well?"

"Calm down, daughter," Nabooru murmured, taking the youth's hand in her own. Gently, she moved Lin's fingers out of their tight, clenched positions and clasped her hand. "There's only one Sage left, and she doesn't need a Medallion to know the time has come."

"Just…tell me," Linkali begged softly. She was tired, drained emotionally and physically. She wanted nothing more than sleep. Her head was still pounding dully. She didn't want to have to go through the guesswork of figuring out what this Seventh Sage had become, or where to find them, or how to subdue them and tell them what was needed of them. "Or just send me to where I can find them."

Impa moved forward, laying a cool, gentle hand on Lin's bruised back. The red-eyed Sage offered the tired girl a rare smile. "The Seventh Sage is already awakened and ready—she is the woman who recognized your power and set you on this quest," she said.

Linkali looked up, recognition sparking in her tired blue eyes. "Zelda," she whispered. Impa nodded. "Zelda is the Seventh Sage."

"She's waiting for you." The soul-eyed youth looked down at Saria as the tiny Sage approached. "Back at your village. Once she's been brought here, we can finally start working on the Master Sword." The Kokiri child's eyes glittered excitedly at the thought, and Lin found it in herself to smile. Glancing around at the rest of the Sages standing there, she reached into her pack—she was still wearing her Gerudo attire, and her normal clothes were stored away—and pulled out the clay flute necklace. She played the song that repetition had made familiar, the song that would take her home again.

* * *

Remembering her promise to HyReCo that she would be there to lead them into battle once she showed her face in the village again, the tired Hylian youth opted to stay away from home for the time being. She wasn't too keen on telling them that she'd actually neglected a detail, and that there was still a bit more of a wait before she could take command. She knew that the wary Hylians would feel best if they were following a leader who was aware of every single detail and could anticipate everything that might come at them, and the fact that she hadn't been aware that there were actually _seven_ Sages might not settle well with some. It wasn't so much lying to them as it was neglecting to tell them the full story. Linkali might not be afraid to take action like the rest of her people, but she could be just as secretive as they were, if she wanted to be.

Evening was starting to settle over the land, with the setting summer sun throwing a reddish glow over the land. (_Red sky at night, herder's delight,_ Lin thought with a weary smile.) Once it was darker, she would slip back through the gates and find Zelda. For now, though, there wasn't much she could do other than wait for darkness to cover her. She shivered in the dimming sunlight, the short hairs all over her body standing up on end with the chill. It was a little colder out here than it had been in the desert, and frankly, she wasn't dressed for the weather. Part of her wanted to get somewhat washed up in the stream that was flowing not far from where she had touched down, but Linkali wasn't eager to expose her skin any further than she was. Stubbornly, she tugged on her shirt and mantle over the bloodied Gerudo uniform and huddled herself down to wait, arms wrapped tightly around her legs for warmth.

It wasn't more than an hour later than she pushed herself up stiffly from the ground. Her legs shrieked in protest, muscles aching from all the running, darting, and twisting she'd done in the Spirit Temple just earlier today; her head pounded dully, still throbbing from her collision with the wall when she had fought off the Iron Knuckle. She pushed the discomfort aside doggedly, lowering her head and pushing on despite the temptation to simply sleep where she fell now. The sooner she got in, the sooner she could speak with Zelda, and the sooner she could get the former monarch in tow and up to the Sacred Realm, the sooner she could rest. With Navi hovering just ahead to light her path, Lin started walking towards the village gates.

* * *

"It's finished."

Linkali had to wonder if Zelda had even heard her. The village founder was still staring in worried shock at the rough-looking youth who had come to be standing on her doorstep at this hour. Her dark eyes flitted over the dried smudges of blood on Lin's cheek and hands, the dusty, tangled hair that she hadn't had time to brush for days, the sharp edge of obvious pain in her tired eyes. One gloved hand rose, cupping the young woman's face tenderly; the other clasped in a loose fist that rested over her own heart. _Lin,_ she mouthed silently. (Linkali was somewhat surprised. Zelda never shaped words with her mute lips, always preferring to speak with gestures or by writing.) The hand resting against the elder's chest moved away, gesturing for her two guests to come inside.

"I broke Nabooru's seal," Linkali said as she stepped into the smoky warmth of Zelda's home. The former monarch smiled warmly. "The other Sages need you before they can restore the Master Sword."

Zelda nodded, confirming that she had known this all along. However, she didn't make any move to take Lin's hand and transport them back to the Sacred Realm. She continued walking in towards the kitchen. The younger Hylian balked, not sure if there was something she herself had missed here. After a moment, she continued walking, coming up behind the Seventh Sage just as she was laying out a few things on the table. "So…we can go now, if you're ready," she hedged in slowly. "I mean, unless you've got something you need to take care of here first."

The village founder's quill pen scratched through the quiet air in the kitchen, and a moment later, Zelda had turned and handed a sheet of parchment with a hastily written message on it. _I __do__ have something here that must be cared for:_ _You. _

Lin set the paper down on the table, stepping around so that she was beside Zelda. The elderly woman smiled warmly over at her before settling into one of the chairs. After a moment, her young friend followed suit. "I'll be fine," the girl said wearily as she watched Zelda scribbling hastily. "I just want to get this over with. I just—"

She broke off as Zelda pushed the sheet of parchment over the table towards her, the mute woman's personal way of interrupting someone. Linkali read the graceful runes: _Are you hungry? I would be happy to make you something to eat._

"I'm fine," the young woman replied. A bold-faced lie. Her stomach was roaring with hunger-cramps, so much so that at times she honestly felt as if she were about to be ill. "I just want—"

Lin was cut off again as Zelda pushed another sentence towards her. _Are you certain, Lin? It really would be no trouble at all. _A bit further down the page—the mute woman's way of pausing in her interruption, something that those who spoke aloud would have a difficult time with—she had written, _Would you just like some tea, then? I have plenty more of the Gerudo blend that you're so fond of, and obtained a few different varieties while you were away from the village. Would you like to try one of them?_

"I don't _want_ tea," Linkali snapped, spitting out each of the consonants angrily. Zelda's quill fell remarkably still as she looked up at the young woman, her eyes a little wider than usual. Lin balked, realizing that she'd sounded rather harsh just then, far sharper than she had intended. "I'm sorry, I just…I appreciate the thought, Zelda, I really do, but…" She tapered off, one hand cradling her head tenderly. Goddess Din, this was making her head hurt even worse. She sat like that for a few moments before she felt a gentle hand come to rest on her shoulder. She looked up, and saw that the keeper of Wisdom had written something more for her.

_I realize that you wish to get this part of your quest complete as soon as possible_, _but Lin, anyone with eyes can see that you are completely and utterly exhausted right now. I do not know what transpired in the Spirit Temple, nor do I need a full account at this moment, but clearly, whatever took place has drained you. You need to eat and rest—perhaps more so the latter than the former. I will take my place with the other Sages in the Sacred Realm in due time, but I will not do so until you are cared for._

"Then I'll head back home and get some sleep," Lin muttered. Zelda studied her for a few moments, then shook her head. "No, really, I'll be fine."

The elderly woman stepped back, motioning for Linkali to follow her. Lin, still cradling her head in one hand, obeyed without a word. Experience had taught her better than to try and push Zelda too far when the older Hylian was adamant on a point. Lin herself might be stubborn, but so was Zelda. In silence, she followed the village founder through the hall, and towards the back stairs. Dimly, she realized that this was the first time she had seen this particular part of Zelda's home. But why was she taking her there now? _She's not…Is she?_

The stairs led up to a loft that spanned about half the area of the house below it. Linkali climbed up the stairs, pausing at the top to glance around, her weariness and pain momentarily put aside by her curiosity. Here, the scent of incense was somewhat fainter, but it still hung in the air delicately, mingling with the scent of the woman who burned it. A few shelves of books stood against the sides of the room, a sight that was both somewhat startling and yet completely expected. (Lin was still surprised to see so _many_ books, but as she'd gotten to know Zelda better, she'd found herself thinking that the village founder likely had more than just what was downstairs.) The youth's eyes roved away from the tomes—the thought of reading was making her headache intensify—and glanced back around.

There was a single window in the loft, but it was large enough that, in the daytime, it could shed light over the whole room. In the dim moonlight that filtered into the loft, Lin could see a few potted plants resting on the low, broad sill, which looked large enough to also accommodate Zelda, should she choose to sit there. Across the floor from the window was a rather ornate vanity, somewhat dusty from disuse, with a few pots of ink and quills lying atop what looked like an old sketchbook. There was also a small table, which had an old glass bottle sitting in the middle; there were a number of dried flowers arranged in the bottle as if it were a vase, and Linkali was pretty sure that they had stems made of metal needles, just like the ones in the kitchen did.

Lin spotted Zelda, who had grabbed a lantern on her way up and lit it, standing on the far side of the loft; the lantern was resting on a small table, and it cast a faint glow over the upper room. Zelda was standing beside a low bed, its sheets pulled up and tucked in neatly. A colorful quilt—a gift from someone in the village, no doubt—lay atop the bed, and as the young woman approached, the elder turned the top of it down and pulled back the sheets partway. She looked back at her young friend with a warm smile and patted the mattress invitingly. Linkali balked, shaking her head slightly and hanging back a bit more.

"Zelda, I'm not…I can't…" she began haltingly. _I'm not going to sleep in your bed._ Nayru knew, she would love nothing more than to sink into the mattress after the past few nights of sleeping on the cold, hard floor of the Spirit Temple. However, if she did that, she would be forcing Zelda to sleep somewhere less hospitable. The couch downstairs, maybe? The cushions looked soft enough, but wouldn't that hurt the older woman's joints? "I can't take your bed."

To her surprise, the former monarch actually seemed to contemplate that. After a moment, Zelda nodded slowly in agreement. Before Linkali could start to relax, though, the older woman grinned somewhat mischievously and bent at the waist to tap her own boots. She straightened up, pointing at Lin's feet, before making a motion that looked like she was removing something. She agreed that the young woman couldn't use her bed—not while she was still wearing shoes, at any rate.

Linkali sighed. Something told her it would probably be best if she just dropped the argument and did as she was told. As much as she hated the thought of forcing her friend to sleep somewhere that might be less than comfortable for her, she had to admit, she just wanted to lie down and sleep. She tugged off the slippers that Aliyah had leant her, setting them off to the side. Zelda nodded, grinning her approval, and patted the sheets again.

Still somewhat reluctantly, Lin moved towards the bed and settled down on the edge of it. She picked up her now-bare feet, sliding her legs under the cool, smooth sheets. Slowly, the young woman eased herself down onto the mattress, laying her tired head down on the pillow. Goddesses have mercy, this had to be the most comfortable bed she'd ever lain in! Linkali's eyes narrowed like a contented cat's as she snuggled her cheek down against the cool pillowcase. The fabric around her radiated Zelda's gentle scent, faintly sweet and spiced by her favorite incense. That scent had been one that Lin associated strongly with someone she had come to care deeply for, and she felt safe and secure to have it hang in the air all around her.

She felt herself beginning to slide back into sleep, but seconds before she could enter that state for herself, a chilliness descended over one of her hands. _Goddesses, why now?_ she wondered. Couldn't he just let her sleep? Before she could grow too worked up over this, though, the heaviness of forced sleep fell over her mind, and she slipped away into blackness.

* * *

Zelda smiled gently as she pulled the covers up around the tired young woman's shoulders and settled down on the edge of the mattress. One gloved hand brushed Linkali's cheek, smoothing the hair away from it tenderly. The Triforce of Wisdom purred softly within her, resonating gently with the piece Linkali held in her own body. For a few moments, she let that gentle hum consume her world…until she felt a rather bizarre shift. It was impossible to describe it, really, but if she had to, the former Princess would have said that it felt like the Triforce of Wisdom had, for a moment, stopped resonating with Lin's piece, and had begun to resonate with another. The resonance was hollow, though, strangely distant—almost like a half-forgotten memory.

She sensed nothing worrying about it, though, and after a brief moment, the strange resonance was gone. At virtually the same time, the young woman under the covers sighed softly and relaxed into sleep. Zelda looked over at Navi, who was standing on the pillow, and after a silent exchange of glances, the fairy drifted up into the air and accompanied Zelda out of the room, leaving Lin to get her well-earned rest.

* * *

"Spirit, _please_ don't make me hunt you down tonight," Linkali called out into the silent landscape. She had opened her eyes to find herself in the field once again, where the empty sky arched over her head and the grassland shimmered in the impossibly hot sunlight. Her voice faded from the dry air, and after a moment, the hawk she had never seen screeched in reply, its voice distant and strange.

To be honest, as much as she loved and respected the Warrior's Spirit, she wasn't really in the mood for seeing him right now. Even though she felt refreshed and rejuvenated here, Lin knew that, in reality, she wasn't. If she were to waken right now, she would be just as drained as she had been when she'd laid down to sleep. She wasn't the slightest bit tired in this dream, but that didn't change the fact that she wanted her mind to rest.

When the armored man failed to show his face, Linkali groaned under her breath and began to push her way through the high grass of the field. The cool stalks slid against her with the quiet whisper of rattling seedheads. She sighed, speaking to the Warrior's Spirit as she pressed forward, despite the fact that he was not around. "I don't mean to sound whiny." She pushed aside an armful of grass. "To be honest, I'm actually glad to be away from that headache." Another armful of long-stemmed grass. "Don't get me wrong, Spirit, I _do_ like speaking with you, it's just that—" She snapped off as the third sweep of grass revealed the all-too-familiar clearing where she had always found the armored Spirit—and sure enough, there he stood, armor gleaming in the brilliant sunlight.

" 'It's just that', what, Lin?" he asked calmly.

"It's just that I've had a few very long days of late, and I was hoping to get some rest," the young woman managed to say after a moment. Confusion darted through her eyes. _Why is it that any other night, I would have to spend hours tracking you down, and yet tonight, you appear so quickly?_ She shook her head. That wasn't what mattered. She focused her attention back on the man standing before her, and got the sense that beneath his visor, he was giving her the same gentle grin Zelda had earlier.

"That is why I brought you here tonight," the Warrior's Spirit explained, "that you might rest undisturbed. Surely you have, in the past, been told that at times you cannot be roused from sleep?" Linkali nodded. "And surely you know that during those instances, you and I were speaking." Again, she nodded. "I have it in my power to place you in a sleep from which you will not awaken until I allow it—that is how you and I have been able to speak without interruption, as light a sleeper as you are."

Lin took that in, nodding slowly. It made sense. She called to mind their brief conversation in the Rogons' Cavern, how she had slept through Navi screeching in her ear as the stone-skinned beasts dropped a barricade of rocks in front of her only escape. She brought her attention back to the plated warrior before her as he stepped forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. "If you like, I will do this for you now," he offered. "I will place you in the arms of sleep, and those arms will not release you until you have rested your mind and are ready to handle what lies before you." He held out his other hand palm up in a gesture of curiosity. "Do you wish for me to do that for you?"

Linkali stood in silence, looking up at the armored warrior. Somewhere in the grass behind her, the horse that she had seen as frequently as she'd seen the hawk snorted and pawed the ground. A weak smile started to curl across her face. Zelda's home was quiet, but it hardly took anything at all to bring Lin jolting out of her dreams; she didn't want to face the waking world until she honestly had to, and the Warrior's Spirit was giving her a chance to do just that. "I'd like that," she said softly. "Thank you, Spirit."

"Breaking the seals of the Six Sages took tremendous effort on your part, but you managed to complete the task beautifully," the man murmured. "You have more than earned the right to rest." He reached out, gold-plated gauntlet gleaming, and pressed his first two fingers to the center of the young woman's forehead.

Without warning, Linkali felt herself beginning to fall backwards, in much the same way as it felt when the Spirit released her into true sleep after their meetings; however, despite that sensation, the sun-soaked prairie around them did not fade into black. The feeling of falling continued, and Lin actually found herself reeling backwards, her eyelids suddenly growing heavier. Her body jerked slightly, like the massive twitch that shatters a thin sleep; she opened her eyes to see the golden visor of the Warrior's Spirit hovering over her. He had moved around to her side and caught her as she fell.

As she looked up at him through narrowed eyes, the grassland shimmered around them and began to change. The glaring sunlight softened into a much softer, greenish glow and the baking heat shifted to a pleasant coolness. The rich, fresh scent of growing plant life rose up around them as the air grew slightly humid and easier on the lungs. Linkali's eyes drooped a little more closed. _The forest._ Dimly, some part of her realized that there was something different about the forest this time. It was darker, cooler; the crickets in the undergrowth were more numerous, and the distant warblers steadily fell silent. Night was falling over the forest, a gentle evening perfect for rest.

Lin felt herself growing more and more tired with each second that passed. Her eyelids grew impossibly hard to lift, heavier than the Mirror Shield had been on her weary arm just earlier that day. She felt herself come to rest on a cool, springy patch of moss, smelled the warm scent of leather as the Warrior's Spirit rubbed the backs of his fingers against her cheek in a slow, smooth circle. "Sleep." His deep voice hummed through the air around her. She knew that tone of voice. It was the tone he used when he wanted her to obey him quickly, that strange way of speaking that felt as if her own spirit was speaking to her and telling her what to do. How could she resist? Settled on the ground, wrapped up safely with a guardian Spirit to watch over her, Linkali led herself slide back into a dark and wonderful sleep. Her last thought before she slipped away was how glad she was to have people who cared so deeply about her, both when she was awake and when she was asleep.

* * *

Linkali wasn't sure how much time had passed from the moment the Warrior's Spirit had taken her away to the moment her dark blue eyes flicked open, only that it had been enough time to quiet her throbbing head. For a few moments, she lay where she was, inhaling deeply and drawing in the spice of incense that hung faintly over the sheets. (Upon first opening her eyes, she'd momentarily forgotten where she was; the familiar scent of incense had been a gentle reminder.) She was warm and cozy under the blankets. True, she was still a little stiff and sore from her misadventures through the Spirit Temple, but she could tolerate that level of discomfort. Her head was clearer now than it had been in days, which was a blessing like no other for a young woman who preferred to go through life fully alert and aware. She didn't lie there long, though, before she realized how hungry she was. For the most part, the hunger cramps had the dull, aching edge to them that said her stomach was starting to wonder if she ever planned to eat again and was trying to resign itself to the answer being "no." Fortunately, if the smell in the air was any indication, she _would_ get the chance to eat again fairly soon.

Lin sat up slowly, one hand massaging her belly. Her eyes fell to the small table by the bed, and she saw that there was a bowl of water with a few small towels there, as well as a long-handled brush. She reached out, dabbling her fingers curiously in the water, and was startled to discover that it was actually somewhat warm. Her best guess was that it had been much, much hotter when it was poured, and that it had been sitting there long enough to cool. Clearly, Zelda had anticipated that Linkali would want to wash up before anything else; the dust and dried blood from her time in the Spirit Temple was still caked all over. Smiling, the young woman picked up one of the towels and dipped it into the bowl. She started just by wiping off her face, though it wasn't long before she'd stripped off most of her clothing to get herself as clean as possible. Most of the blood from her former arm wound, as well as the numerous scrapes she'd accrued, had been rubbed off while she slept, but wiping down helped her remove at least the memory of the grime and pain. Once she was cleaner—and the towels showed that she had cleaned more than just memories from her skin—Lin reached for the brush and set to work pulling apart the tangled mess of her hair.

It wasn't much longer after that that she pulled on her familiar shirt, leggings, and mantle, tugged on her boots, and declared herself ready to eat. She paused for just a moment longer to straighten up the bed before gathering up her belongings and heading back downstairs. The closer she walked to the kitchen, the more she became aware of the tantalizing scents of food that had been teasing her since she awoke. She poked her head into the kitchen, grinning. "Good…evening, I suppose," she said, somewhat sheepishly. It had been dark in the loft, and while Lin had been willing to attribute a good bit of that to the fact that the curtains over the single window had been drawn, now that she was downstairs, she could tell that it truly was that dark.

"Lin!" Navi zipped away from her seat on Zelda's shoulder at the young woman's voice, darting up in front of her partner's face excitedly. "You're awake!"

Linkali nodded, glancing over towards Zelda. The village founder turned away from the stove, smiling warmly at her young friend. Her ocean-blue eyes glittered as she glided across the floor to embrace the younger woman. Lin returned the hug, feeling that soothing purr of her piece of the Triforce resonating with Zelda's. After a few moments, she pulled back, laughing sheepishly. "Did I really just sleep for an entire day?" she asked. Zelda nodded, looking somewhat amused. She glanced towards the table, which was already set for two, though the usual writing materials were there. Lin released her friend, and Zelda moved towards the table and began to write.

_While you slept, Navi told me of the difficulties you faced in the Spirit Temple,_ she explained. She shook her head sympathetically. _I will be honest, Lin: I never imagined your quest would do quite as much harm to you bodily as it has thus far. _

"It has taught me a lot, though," the young woman admitted. "I've learned more about fighting by being thrown into the heat of battle than I ever would have learned if the quest were as simple as traveling to find the Sages and just giving back the Medallions."

Zelda nodded fairly. _I do worry about when the time will come for you to face Ganon in the final battle,_ she confessed. _I do not doubt your skills, but I believe that he will prove to be a far more challenging opponent than any you have faced thus far in your quest. __Years__ of training might be the only thing that would ensure that we would still have you at the end of the day._

Linkali reached out, settling her steady hand over one that was beginning to tremble with fright. Zelda looked up at her, smiling weakly. "I'll admit, I could probably stand to have a bit more training under my belt before I went to take on the Evil King," she said. _And Nayru knows, HyReCo could use some as well, just to make sure we come through with as few losses as possible._ "I'll talk to Vantal tomorrow about taking a few more days to ensure that everything is ready. We were a little hasty to think that we could be ready to fight in such a short amount of time."

The former monarch huffed softly, her own silent laugh. _You will find many people in the fighting force who will thank you for that decision,_ she wrote. _Preparations have gone well thus far, but many still have their doubts. More time will help them to gain the confidence they need._ She smiled. _And, of course, seeing that their fearless leader is more confident will go miles towards helping them._

" 'Fearless leader'." Linkali snickered. "I'm anything but, Zelda." The older Hylian shook her head, shaking one finger playfully at Lin. She struck a brash pose, one hand clenched in a proud fist, body tilted slightly forward, eyes fixed fiercely on some imagined horde of enemies. She held the pose for a moment, then dropped it and pointed at Lin with a smirk that seemed to say _That's you I was imitating just now._ Before the youth could open her mouth to deride herself further, Zelda turned and strode towards the stove. Away from her writing tools, there was no way for her to counter anything Lin said about her own abilities—the argument, and the young woman's chance to say how lacking she was, was over.

Linkali smirked and settled down into one of the two chairs. "Did you head to the Sacred Realm while I was sleeping?" she asked. Zelda turned over one shoulder and shook her head. "You were waiting for me?" The woman nodded. Lin had to wonder why that was, whether she had some role to complete or if Zelda had just wanted the Sages to be able to see for themselves that the once-bedraggled girl was indeed rested and content once more. "I assume we'll be leaving after we eat, then?" Again, Zelda nodded. "I'm not complaining about that. I'm so hungry, I could eat an Octarok." **(1) **The woman at the stove huffed a laugh softly, shooting her young friend a fond look over one shoulder before returning to the meal she was preparing.

Fortunately for Lin, it wasn't much longer before the food was ready and on the table. The young woman couldn't help herself. She hadn't eaten much in the Spirit Temple to begin with, and now that she'd slept away an entire day, she was famished. She was glad that neither Zelda nor Navi saw fit to tease her about how much she was eating or how voraciously she ate it. After the meal, the three women sat around for a time, just relaxing and enjoying each others' company; then, after cleaning up the dishes and a few other things—such as the bowl of water that Lin had used to wash up—the time came for them to depart. Linkali reached for the flute under her mantle, but Zelda stopped her calmly. Setting one hand on the youth's upper arm, the Seventh Sage had closed her eyes and tilted her head back slightly. Lin let her own eyes close as well, knowing that before long, she would open them and find herself standing in the Sacred Realm.

**(1) I really need to stop slipping in references to Zelda things that shouldn't have existed.**


	26. 25: The Master Sword's Rebirth

"Lin! Navi! And Zelda! They're here!"

Linkali opened her eyes, hardly surprised to see the tiny Sage of Forest racing up to meet them. Saria looked as excited as always to see people she liked. She darted in first to Lin, wrapping her arms tightly around the older girl's legs in a hasty hug; before Lin could bend down and scoop her up, though, the child had already darted over to Zelda. The former princess laughed—actually _laughed aloud_, which startled Lin—and crouched down lower to the ground. She drew Saria in close, then rose to her feet; the Kokiri child snuggled up against her, her arms wrapped around Zelda's neck. Saria then leaned in closer, whispering something in Zelda's ear. The old woman balked, her eyes growing wide. She gave the girl a curious look, and Saria nodded with a satisfied grin.

"Goddess of the Sand, kiddo!" Lin jumped in surprise, looking over to see Nabooru making her way towards them, her white-painted lips curled up in a broad grin; her catlike, yellow eyes were on Saria. "Who needs a watchdog when we've got you to tell us who's coming and going?" Her golden eyes shifted over to the Hylian youth, and she winked warmly. "You're looking much better, daughter," she added, reaching out to cup Linkali's cheek in one of her tanned hands. Her slender fingers skated up to stroke the girl's honey-brown hair tenderly, then down to clap her shoulder. A gleam of mischief sparked in her yellow gaze, and she flicked her head towards Zelda, who was currently being embraced tightly by Impa. "She give you as much trouble as the rest of us did?"

"_So_ much trouble," Lin joked, rolling her eyes. "Once I managed to find her, she made me _sleep_,and when I woke up, I had to eat a decent meal for the first time in a few days."

"What a trial," the Gerudo woman murmured, shaking her head sympathetically. "Goddess, how did you manage to escape from that one intact?"

"I'm not sure, but it wasn't easy, I can say that much." Nabooru laughed, clapping down on Linkali's shoulder again. She glanced in Zelda's direction for a moment, then looked back at Lin. She slipped the girl a wink before moving over to speak with the woman herself.

Linkali took a few steps back, allowing the Sages to greet the final member of their number. It wasn't long, though, before she noticed two of them breaking away from the group. Somewhere along the way, it seemed as though Saria had shimmied out of Zelda's arms, for the Forest Sage was now walking across the green grass of the Sacred Realm beside Darunia. Nosily, Lin allowed her attention to fall away from the joyous reunion and onto the two of them.

The massive Goron smiled warmly down at Saria. "You recall where you found it?" he asked in a low murmur. Saria beamed up at him.

"Of course!" she piped back. "Not freshly-fallen, just like you said, and it's a really big one, too." She paused. "But if it's not big enough, I know where to find a few more like it."

"Excellent." Darunia reached down, rumpling the girl's emerald-green hair with a surprising amount of gentleness. Saria giggled, stretching up towards his hand like a happy kitten. "Shall we go now, while the others are still occupied?"

"Sure," Saria returned, ducking out from under his hand. "We can bring everything back and get things set up for them. We should be finished by the time they're ready." She balked, her bright blue eyes flicking back to the group not that far off. "If we really wanted to get things started, we could get Ruto to bring her things as well, but…she looks busy right now." The Sage of Water was currently trying, alongside Nabooru, to find a way to squeeze in between Impa and Zelda so that they could give their own greetings to the former princess.

"All things in due time," Darunia said softly. "It is better this way, really. Ruto will need my strength to break through the ice in Zora's Fountain." Saria nodded. "Come. Let us go."

Before Lin could step forward and ask what they had been talking about, the two Sages disappeared. Well, sort of. As she was preparing to approach, two orbs of light—one a fiery red, the other a deep forest green—took the places of them. She watched, startled and confused, as the two orbs took off through the air, zipping away and vanishing without a trace. She was left staring in confusion, not so much over how they had zipped off like that—she sort of figured that was some Sage power—but where they had gone and what they had been talking about.

"Are you quite well, Lin?" an unfamiliar voice asked, cutting through her confused thoughts gently. Lin felt a hand settle on her shoulder, and the Triforce of Courage within her began to resonate. "You seem troubled by something—or at least rather confused."

"I'm just wondering where…" the young woman began, only to hesitate. Slowly, she turned her head to the side, looking at Zelda's familiar, lined face. The old woman was wearing the same peaceful, curious smile she always wore when asking questions, but Linkali wasn't so willing to be swept up in that familiarity. She wasn't stupid. The voice she had heard was unfamiliar, and the only person here whose voice was unknown to her was the woman whose voice she had never heard. The woman who had no voice. "Actually, scratch that. Right now, I'm just wondering if that was you I just heard."

"That depends on what you heard," the unfamiliar voice replied, and Zelda's lips moved to match its words perfectly. Lin laughed weakly, her soul-blue eyes filled with nothing but pure amazement.

"Ah…_that_," she said, one hand rubbing the back of her neck. She balked, frowning slightly as a thought occurred to her. Some of the surprise in her eyes gave way to something that was not quite suspicion. "How, though? When we first started…speaking"—she could say that because technically, though Zelda had never said a word, she had written plenty, and that was a way of speaking in its own right—"you said that you had gone mute. Physically mute."

The elderly Hylian laughed softly, and Linkali felt a small chill race up her spine. Though Zelda's voice had the faint edge of roughness that touched the voices of every other elder, the woman's laugh was one that she expected to hear from a young woman. "The Sacred Realm is a place where things that were once ruined are made whole again," Zelda told her. "Your wounds, my voice…" She paused, grinning brilliantly, and once again, Lin was silently amazed at just how young the old woman always looked when she smiled like that. "Though there is one more thing that must be restored in this place."

Linkali nodded. _The Master Sword._ She looked up at Impa, standing with one arm around the waist of the woman she had once guarded with her life, then to Ruto who was standing just as close, then to Rauru and Nabooru, standing to the side. It was the Sage of Shadow who spoke, though. "The Master Sword must be reforged before its spirit may be mended," she explained. "Darunia and Saria left to gather the first of the necessary items—wood for the fire."

Lin nodded again. She felt Zelda squeeze her shoulder gently and turned to look at the woman. "While we are waiting for them to return," Zelda said, "would you like to take a walk with me and look around?" There was a glimmer in her eyes that Linkali recognized—the glint that said _I know something you don't, and I've every intention of letting you know it…when the time is right._

"Of course," she replied. Zelda smiled again, nodding. She glanced back at Impa, who removed her arm from the Seventh Sage's waist and stepped back. Zelda held out her hand to the young woman whose journey she had followed so loyally from the start. Lin didn't even hesitate. She wrapped her hand around Zelda's, smiling as the two pieces of the Triforce within them began to resonate warmly with each other. Together, the two women moved towards the lake that lay on one end of the landscape.

Linkali looked around as they walked, honestly amazed by what she saw. The grass beneath their boots, once dead and dry and yellowed, was now lush and vibrant green. It bent silently under each step, only to spring back up as the foot pressing it down moved away, neither crackling nor crumbling. The youth was half tempted to crouch down and run her hands through it like she might the fur of a goat ready for sale, checking its thickness and evenness, and feeling how it lay. She restrained the urge, though, and instead fixed her eyes forward.

The lake. Goddess Din, the first time she had come to this place, there had been no lake—only the dead, dried-up bed of one. The dry mud have been riven with deep, square-shaped cracks that flaked around the edges. Looking at it now, Lin could only assume that there had once been mud there, for the only thing before her now was water, deep and pure. As they neared, she could make out small stands of pond-weeds growing in the shallows, and a few brief flicks of silver as minnows darted through the water. Whether they were actual living fish or perhaps some clever image, she didn't know, but she found she hardly cared.

"Thank you."

Linkali turned, looking at the one who had spoken. Zelda offered her a warm smile. "Thank you," she repeated, "for everything you've done, Lin." The former monarch's eyes went back to the lake before them, whose water glittered brightly under the warm light above. "I did not see for myself the extent of the damage that was done while the Sacred Realm was opened to the forces of darkness, but I can hardly imagine it was anything like this."

Lin shook her head. "It was…dead," she replied softly. Zelda nodded, her expression turning serious for a few moments. A small silence fell between them, broken only by the quiet murmur of the lake's gentle waves. After a bit, Zelda reached out, setting her hand on the rock formation where a certain Sheikah had at one point brooded over a battle she hated herself for starting. She looked over at the younger Hylian with the same warm grin as always.

"But no longer," she pointed out. "It is thanks to you and your hard work that the Sages were able to return to this realm and restore it to its former glory." She gave the girl a look as if to say, _And that isn't the only thing they'll be restoring._

They stayed on the lakeshore for a bit longer before Zelda began to walk again. Linkali followed beside her, turning her eyes towards what seemed to be the next landmark they would visit: the mountain. (Perhaps it was not so much a mountain as an outcropping of stone that stretched high enough towards the sky, but it looked like it _could_ be a mountain from a distance.) The elderly Sage paused at the foot of it, kicking her head back smoothly as if following the stone up with her eyes. Lin did the same, glancing back at Zelda when she spoke up again.

"You always were a joy to watch when you were younger," she murmured. "I can't recall how many times I found myself wishing that I could send my piece of the Triforce away and approach you when you were a child. You were bright, oddly inquisitive for a Hylian, and bolder than every one of the children your age—well, except perhaps Bartal." She laughed quietly, and Lin found herself chuckling as well. The old woman took her eyes away from the stone, which burned a bright and hearty red against the sky, and looked at her companion. "I looked forward to the day when I could finally approach you and begin to speak with you, and when that day finally arrived, I was incredibly glad."

Linkali smiled shyly. "You had grown from an energetic little tomboy into a strong and mature young woman," Zelda continued. "Every time I looked at you, I knew that the Triforce of Courage had finally chosen its true bearer after so many years, and that you would be the one to set Hyrule free. As you set off on your quest and met with success after success, I began to respect you more and more than I thought I could respect anyone else, and I was as fond of you as I would be of my own daughter or granddaughter." She squeezed the youth's hand and began to walk around the side of the red stone, towards the forest that was peeking up around the edge; Linkali followed. "I'm proud of you, Lin. I'm very, very proud."

Lin smiled sheepishly, totally unsure as to how she should act in the face of this immense praise. She knew Zelda meant each and every word that she said. The woman had stopped speaking all those years ago because the man she had loved—the mute man she loved—had died. She had broken that vow in a minor way when she wrote words to her young friend. Now she was actually _speaking_ them with her newly-restored voice. Why would she break her vow over words that she did not mean with her whole heart? She meant everything sincerely, and Linkali knew it.

As they neared the forest, the young woman felt a sense of quiet awe. Of all the changes that had taken place with the Sages' unsealings, this was perhaps the most dramatic of them all. How long had these trees looked like this? When she had first arrived in the Sacred Realm with Saria in tow, they had been dead and bare. Their trunks had been pale and their bark dry, their branches twisted like angry claws and bared at the dull sky. The forest had seemed so hostile then, unwelcoming and suspicious, embittered by its neglect and death.

But now she was walking beneath a sky of brilliant blue, stepping under boughs that were heavy with emerald green leaves. Most of the trees' bark was a rich shade of brown that seemed to glow with health and life, although there were a fair number of glistening silver birches; the black, eye-like spots on their bark seemed to watch the Seventh Sage and the Hero's Incarnation with a pleasant, open interest as the two women passed them. Lin inhaled deeply, breathing in the rich, heavy scents of the loam and moss. There was no forest like this near Kokoria, or anywhere she had traveled before; the young woman got the sense that this was what the Lost Woods, or perhaps even the _Ko_kiri Forest, might have looked like back before the Evil King took hold of Hyrule.

Linkali turned her eyes and attention back to Zelda as the old woman spoke up again. "I think I can safely speak for all the Sages when I say that their feelings are the same. I could hear it in the way Saria cried your name when we arrived, the way Nabooru touched your cheek; I could see it in their eyes just as plainly as I might see in your own just how much they care about you. How much they respect you. How proud they are that you, a young woman raised to cower in the shadows and ignore the pressing evil, is now rising up and taking a stand against the darkness." She paused, and when she spoke up again, her voice was somewhat shaky. "And I'm sure that, wherever he is, Link is also very proud of your accomplishments and how much you have grown."

Linkali was glad that Zelda wasn't looking at her now; otherwise, the elder would have seen the spark of unease that brightened the younger's eyes briefly. Lin knew now—had known for a while—that the Hero of Time had been a brave young man who had set out to do a very good thing…but she knew he was also a fool. Done in by his stubborn stupidity. She set that thought aside quickly, and was glad she did so, because Zelda turned back to look at her with a soft smile. The former monarch's eyes were a bit brighter than usual, and the hand Lin held was trembling. "This is what I wanted to show you," she said softly, nodding further down the path.

The young woman looked ahead, noting that the trees were starting to thin out up ahead. Together, the two Hylians stepped out through the forest, and out into a large clearing. There, in the midst of it all, stood a massive stone building. Had Linkali lived in a different day and age, she might have remarked that it looked similar to the Temple of Time, though it was wider and somewhat shorter; however, she had never seen the structure, and could not make that comparison. All she knew about the building was that it was larger and far more ornate than anything she had ever seen in Kokoria, and that gave off an energy similar to a few buildings she had crawled through along her quest—and because of that, she knew it was another Temple. _A Temple inside the Sacred Realm,_ she mused. _That means this would be…_

"This is the Temple of Light," Zelda murmured, almost as if she had heard Lin's thoughts. She still looked like she might begin to cry sometime soon, with her eyes so bright and her smile so shaky. "Come."

The former monarch led the way up the smooth stairs before the Temple entrance. The doors to the Temple of Light were made of stout, dark wood, bound with iron that was carved with ornate and intricate designs. Zelda reached out and laid a hand on the door; she pushed, and it swung open smoothly with a deep, satisfying sound. She continued to walk, with Lin tagging at her side like a faithful puppy. The young woman looked around in awe.

The interior of the Temple of Light was cool and gently lit. Plate-glass windows stretched up high on the sides, and some of the sunlight from the outside filtered in, pooling on the marble floors in shadow-crossed puddles of warmth. In the center of the floor was a mosaic made of colored marble: a large circle with a design in the center of three round-bottomed triangles, pointed inwards and alternating with three circles. _The same design on the Light Medallion,_ Linkali realized, smiling slightly at the thought. Well, all of the other Temples she had seen had their respective Sage's insignia somewhere in the vicinity—although the others had always been on raised stone platforms; this was the first time she had seen one laid in the floor of the Temple. She turned her attention up from the floor as she walked beside Zelda, their footsteps echoing back hollowly as they crossed the polished floors. The walls themselves seemed to ring with hummed refrains of ancient prayer.

Darkened passages led off the sides of that main chamber, running back to Nayru only knew where. Lin wondered briefly if one of those side paths led to the Chamber of Sages she had read about, where each of the Sages had, upon awakening, greeted the Hero of Time. Up ahead, beyond an altar and a flight of small stairs, there was a double door, with the mark of the Triforce carved deep into the stone above it. Zelda approached it, laying her hand against the wooden doors. At her touch, the graven mark of the Goddesses' power began to glow with a pure and gentle golden light, and the doors swung open smoothly and without a single sound. Lin raised her foot to continue walking, only to lower it when she saw that the woman holding her hand had no intention of walking just yet.

"If you recall in the story I gave you to read, this is where Link rested for seven years." Linkali nodded; she remembered. Zelda nodded, drew in a shaky breath. "It is also," she continued softly, her voice trembling, "where he has rested for the past one hundred and fifty years."

Lin's eyes widened. Zelda continued to speak, her eyes fixed firmly on the darkness of the chamber ahead of them. "After I fled the scene of the final battle, with the Master Sword in my possession, th—…the rest of the Sages raced to the battlefield," she said, somewhat haltingly. "They re—…recovered Link's body…and brought it here." She sighed. "There was talk of…trying to restore him to life, but he…They had waited too long." She shook her head, and Linkali was reminded of what the former monarch had told her: that on that stormy night, she had had to choose between the blade that could save Hyrule and the man who could wield it—the man she loved. To know that her choice had well and truly been one or the other, with no chance of having both, must have devastated her. A century and a half after the fact, sorrow still weighed heavily on her words. "So he was laid to rest here instead, protected by the power of Light."

Zelda looked back at Lin briefly, then forward again, and started walking. Linkali followed, noting with surprise that as they walked, torches flickered into life ahead of them, lighting their path. The passageway was short, and at the end of it was a moderately-sized, round room. Lin stepped in beside Zelda, looking in silent awe at what lay before them.

Resting in the center of the chamber was a large sarcophagus carved from white marble. The sides of it were plain and undecorated, probably to avoid detracting from the top of it. _The top…_ Linkali felt her breath catch in her throat. The top slab of the sarcophagus was carved with the raised image of a Hylian man—a young man. Looking at him, Lin was fairly sure he couldn't have been made to look much older than she herself was. The stone-carved youth lay on his back, shoulders relaxed; his face was finely sculpted, with just enough hardness to the features to be masculine, but with enough softness to give him a rather boyish look. His bangs fell away from his closed eyes, carved precisely enough that it truly looked like actual hair. His mouth was set in a calm line, not quite serious, but not a smile, either. He almost appeared to be sleeping.

Zelda released her hand, and Linkali approached the sarcophagus with reverent slowness. The young man carved on the top slab was dressed in simple clothing, a tunic, leggings, and a long-sleeved undershirt, with a long cap on his head. Every fold and crease carved into the marble was just as it would have been formed if the garments were made of cloth; there were even visible spots of wear on the clothing, and places where the seams looked like they had been clumsily mended by hands unused to sewing. His hands, large and sure with long fingers, were covered in heavy-looking gauntlets, and were wrapped around the grip of a sword.

Linkali balked, her eyes growing wider as she recognized the design of the hilt: smooth and flowing, spread wide like the wings of a bird in flight. The Master Sword.

"Rauru was the last to seal himself away," Zelda whispered, startling the girl. Lin turned over her shoulder to look at her older friend. "He did this." She nodded in a general way to the chamber and the sarcophagus. "When we arrived here today, Saria…told me that once you had left the Sacred Realm after bringing her here, this was the first place she checked." A weak smile crossed the former princess' lips. "Miraculously, it was untouched. His tomb was not desecrated."

Linkali looked back at the sarcophagus resting before her, at the unmarred face of the sleeping Hero of Time. The rest of the Sacred Realm had been ruined, but the young man had gone undisturbed. She smiled slightly, honestly glad for that. After all he had done for Hyrule, the brave young fool deserved to rest in peace—and so he had. _You once slept here for seven years,_ she thought. _May you sleep for many more._

With that, she stepped back away from the carved warrior, treading lightly as if she feared her footfalls might waken him from his stony sleep. She returned to Zelda's side and took the old woman's hand in her own. Zelda looked down at their hands silently, then up at the young woman. Without a word, she released that gentle grasp and wrapped her arms tightly around Linkali. Lin held her friend close. She was sure it was only her imagination, but for a few moments, while the Seventh Sage sobbed quietly, she swore she felt a hand resting on her own shoulder, warm and sure.

* * *

"Linkali of Kokoria Village," Zelda pronounced firmly, her voice ringing out steady and sure. "Breaker of the seals of the Six Sages and Bearer of the Triforce of Courage—the time has come."

Linkali swallowed her pounding heart, her dark blue eyes sparking with excitement. She was standing in the Temple of Light, standing at the bottom of the inlaid mosaic of the Light Medallion. The Sages stood at the top of it, arranged in an arc. Saria and Nabooru stood at the ends, with Darunia and Ruto beside them, also across from each other. Zelda stood in the center of the arc, flanked by Impa on her right and Rauru on her left. The Seventh Sage held a long, cloth-wrapped object in her arms; from the way her lean muscles had tensed, it was heavy, but clearly not so heavy that she could not hold it without assistance.

"Step forward," Zelda ordered calmly. Lin obeyed, walking calmly and purposefully towards the elderly woman.

How long had she and Zelda stood in front of Link's tomb? It wasn't clear, really. At some point, though, Rauru had come shuffling down the passage and spoken to them, telling them that they could remain here, but that Darunia had asked to borrow the Megaton Hammer and Linkali's own blade. The young woman had pulled away just enough to unclip her sword, pass it off to the Sage of Light, and summon the mighty hammer of the Goron hero. Rauru had departed with the two weapons, and it was some time later that Zelda admitted that they should probably go. They had left the Temple of Light together, heading back out into the forest.

The two women had wandered together, listening to the steady clanging of the Megaton Hammer from a nook high in the red rocks. Shortly after it fell silent, Zelda had been called away to help with something. Lin had been left alone with Navi after that, and she had roved and rambled somewhat aimlessly, admiring the vibrant colors of the now-living Sacred Realm. The sun in the sky had, remarkably, moved to set, dipping below the horizon and soaking the land in a comfortable darkness; a full, silver moon had risen to take its place. Not long after moonrise, Saria had found her and told her that the Sages had gathered in the Temple of Light, and Linkali should join them. She had followed the tiny Forest Sage through the trees and into the silver-lit clearing, and it was there that she had found herself faced with the array of people who stood before her now.

"Incarnation of the Hero of Time," the former monarch said, "the time has come to strike against the Evil King and free Hyrule from his grasp."

Lin would later learn that each of the Sages had contributed towards repairing the Master Sword. Saria had sought out fallen trees from her Forest home, which were used to fuel the fires of an impromptu forge. Darunia had heated the steel and hammered out the blade himself, cooling it with sacred, pure water that had been gathered from Zora's Fountain—as chips of ice—by Ruto. Nabooru had brought sand, both coarse and fine, from her Desert home, and Impa had carefully used that grit to smooth and polish the newly-forged blade. Rauru had helped to organize the others, letting them know when each of their contributions was needed; he had also been the one to fetch the hammer with which the Sage of Fire had pounded out the metal, as well as the sword he had used to help design the finished weapon.

Each of the Six Sages had made a physical contribution to make this reborn blade a possibility, but all of them—the Seventh included—also made a spiritual contribution. Gathered together, their power and prayer had restored the broken spirit of the Blade of Evil's Bane. Once more, the sword had the power to repel evil. The legendary, sacred weapon was primed for the defining battle against Hyrule's dark tyrant. All it needed was a champion, pure of heart and intention, to wield it against him.

"The time has come," Zelda repeated, her voice firm and her words spoken clearly. Her eyes were fixed firmly on the young woman who stood before her. Lin stood tall and confident, shoulders back, chin level, eyes forward. The leader of the Sages smiled, almost a little grimly, and turned her eyes to the bundle in her arms. Slowly, as carefully as if she were unwrapping the blankets from a newborn baby, she stripped away the cloth that covered the Master sword, and, taking the sheathed blade into both hands, offered it out. "Champion of Hyrule, claim your blade."

The Temple of Light fell almost eerily silent, with even the echoes of ancient prayer fading out, and Linkali felt the eyes of each Sage focus on her and her alone. This was it. This was the moment. With this, the first and longest part of her quest would be complete at last. The Hylian youth took a single step closer, her eyes locked on Zelda's; then, very calmly, she lowered her gaze to the sword in the old woman's hands. Her hands reached out calmly and wrapped around the blue and gold sheath. Once she had it in her grasp, Zelda let go, and the young woman was left holding the legendary blade for herself.

As she stood there, holding the polished sheath, Lin became aware of something building steadily in the back of her mind. A steady rumble, a gentle vibration. If she had to describe it, she would say it was almost like the sleepy purring of a cat as it curled against its trusted owner. The timeless, ancient hum hovered in her ears, and Linkali realized she wanted more. Her left hand uncurled itself from around the sheath and started to wrap around the gleaming, indigo hilt. Started, because once the first finger brushed the steel beneath the leather binding of the grip, the young woman froze.

She wasn't sure what she'd felt, but she had _liked_ it. It was a kind of electric buzz along her finger, a shimmer in the back of her mind, a burst of stardust in her heart. For the brief instant she had touched the Master Sword, there had been a thrill in her veins of something never before experienced. The Hylian youth blinked silently at the blade, unsure of what she'd just felt. Again, she felt its call, singing quietly at the edges of her mind, whispering in her pointed ears. Her blue eyes reflected the rich purple-blue of the sword's sleek hilt. Like a child that couldn't contain herself, Linkali reached out and rested a few fingers on the crossguard. The mystic purr returned, filling her arm up to the shoulder. Her heart raced in her chest, its beats rapid with excitement, curiosity, and so many other things—among which was a steady certainty. She knew what she needed to do.

Firmly, she wrapped her hand around the leather grip, reveling in the incredible, indescribable feelings that coursed through her arm. She inhaled deeply; her blue eyes closed, and with a swift, decisive motion, she pulled her left arm upwards. There was the delicate sing of metal as the Blade of Evil's Bane slid free from its sheath. Lin's eyes opened and fixed on the silver sword in her grasp.

The mystic thrum that had coursed along the length of her arm before now sang through her whole body, filling her veins with its ancient refrain. Linkali felt her heart pulse harder to match the rhythm; a wild grin erupted on her face, but she was too breathless with wonder to laugh. Triumph surged through her body. Her eyes were blazing with happiness and excitement. Suddenly, the world didn't matter to her. She knew, somehow, instinctively, that everything about this moment was _right_. The blade in her hand was _right_. The song in her blood was _right_. Her presence in the sacred space, surrounded by those she had fought, coaxed, and bargained with to return to their positions, was _right._ Lin thrust her sword arm up, holding the Master Sword aloft so that its bright, keen point caught a shard of the moonlight that was streaming in through the windows of the Temple of Light and glinted coldly like a star.

But she couldn't hold it up for long. Mere moments after drawing the blade and raising it high, Linkali felt her arm begin to tremble. Unease began to take the place of the excitement and wonder in her blue soul-eyes, and somewhat sheepishly, she lowered the blade from its dramatic height. Holding it at waist level didn't cut it; the young woman's arm only stopped shaking when she lowered the Master Sword to the point that its sharp tip was resting on the marble floor, and even then, she wasn't completely comfortable until she dropped the gold-embellished sheath on the ground and gripped the hilt with two hands.

Darunia sighed softly, folding his burly arms over his chest and lowering his head. "I feared this," he said in a low rumble. His head lifted just slightly to look at the young woman. "It is too heavy for you to wield."

"Single-handed, at any rate," Linkali replied sheepishly. She looked down at the blade, and after a moment, wrapped her right hand a little more tightly around the grip. With that, she moved to raise the sword, and found that holding it was much easier. Turning to the side, she gave an experimental swipe, nodding. "I can wield it—it just takes me two hands to do so."

The Sage of Fire shook his head. "I thought that by using the blade you were familiar with wielding, I could make it easier for you to handle," he told her, sounding highly disappointed in himself. "The Master Sword was, technically, made to be held and used by a grown Hylian man. You are a grown Hylian woman. I thought that if I reduced the size of the blade, I could remove some of the excess weight and allow you to wield it more effectively." He frowned, lowering his head in disappointment and shame. "It seems I was wrong. The steel may be more dense than that of your own sword."

"Darunia, I'll be _fine_," Lin assured him. "I can wield it." Her eyes flicked over to the Sheikah woman standing beside Zelda. "Impa?"

The Shadow Sage caught the look in the young woman's eyes and nodded. She stepped away from the group, and Linkali followed her. Once they were a safe distance apart, Impa drew the short blade sheathed behind her and darted in. She leapt into the air and swung downwards. Grasping the Master Sword in both hands, Linkali swiped upwards to counter her. The two blades met with a resounding clang, and Lin felt the sword in her hands begin to growl excitedly in the face of the impromptu sparring match. Impa fell back with the force of the counterstrike, landing neatly in a crouch on the floor, then darted back in. She swiped again, this time at the girl's side. Linkali pivoted her body around, holding the sacred sword out in front of her body, with the flat of the sword facing Impa. The Sheikah's blow rebounded with another beautiful ringing sound, and she stepped back and sheathed her short sword, nodding. Her entire bearing was remarkably calm and composed, as if she had spent the past few minutes writing a cordial letter rather than swapping a few blows with a young warrior.

"She can wield it," the red-eyed Sage confirmed, looking back at Darunia.

The massive Goron nodded slowly, watching Linkali slide the Master Sword back into its sheath. "Very well," he said. He smiled slightly, letting his arms fall back to his sides again.

Linkali reached for the discarded sheath, and slipped the blade back inside. The instant it was tucked away, the mystic thrumming that had pulsed through her blood and bones died down to a gentle, quiet purr, as if the Master Sword were sleeping. Smiling softly, she clipped the weapon to her hip in the same place the sword her father had given her had rested. Her left hand strayed towards the hilt, resting against the sleek steel; the purr strengthened and coursed up her arm, a steady vibration that just felt _right._

_So this is what the books meant,_ she thought wonderingly. _The thrill of ancient power. The perfect balance. This really is the kind of sword they would write legends about._

"Lin!" The young Hylian woman looked up from the sword at her hip, her blue eyes falling to Saria. The Sage of Forest had something in her arms, something soft and green. She beamed up at the young woman. "This is for you," she said. "If you wanted it, anyway." She held them out, and Linkali accepted the bundle, unfolding it and holding it up to get a better look. Her eyes widened, and the sense of familiarity that crept over her was so strong that she wasn't surprised in the slightest when Saria added, "It was his."

Linkali had the reborn sword of a dead Hero, and now she had the tunic he had worn.

"You don't have to wear it," Saria assured her. "I mean, it just…If you wanted to be traditional. Or just wanted to wear something other than your pretty mantle when you go to take on Ganon." She shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck. "Or you could just toss it under your bed and forget about it."

Lin lowered the tunic slowly, folding it up again. "Thank you, Saria," she said. Her eyes showed none of the unease or uncertainty they had moments earlier. Some part of her wondered if this was the tunic Link had worn when he'd died, or if it was just a spare one he had been carrying with him on his adventure. The former option wasn't exactly impossible—the Sages of Water and Forest had shown themselves capable of 'healing' clothing as well as flesh—though it did carry a full set of implications that Linkali wasn't sure she was comfortable with.

Whether spare or not, there was one particular set of insecurities that the young woman was stubbornly burying while she was in the presence of those who had loved Link. She had the clothes of a dead fool, and was being told that she could, if she wanted, wear them into battle. _I…I can't do it._ She drew the line between herself and Link somewhere along the way. She admired his courage and respected his devotion to his destiny…but the man had been a fool. He had died by his own stubbornness. She might be following in his footsteps with this quest, but the last thing Linkali wanted was for people to draw too many parallels between herself and the late Hero of Time.

After all, she highly doubted HyReCo would want to follow a leader who reminded them of the one whose failure years ago had thrown Hyrule into the darkened, oppressed state it was in now.


	27. 26: The Truth

Saria had once told Lin that hours in the Sacred Realm equated to mere minutes in Hyrule. However, the disparities in time didn't exactly translate terribly well to the body of a Hylian. Though she had been with the Sages for barely an hour of Hyrule's time, the young woman's mind and body truly believed that it had spent the better part of a full day awake and moving around, and she was ready for rest. One look at Zelda revealed that the elderly woman felt much the same way, and Navi was in full agreement. Once their business with the Sages had been wrapped up, Zelda had laid a hand on Linkali's shoulder, and the two of them had returned to the land beneath. Though the others might have sent her back to the piece of the Field just outside the village, Zelda returned the three of them to the area just outside her own home. As much as Lin found herself craving her home and family, she figured that one more night would not kill her—and at any rate, it was closer and she was tired and hungry.

Linkali had insisted on taking the couch downstairs that night, and after Zelda had helped her get everything properly arranged, the youth had laid down to rest. She could hear the faint purring of the Master Sword from where it lay on the floor beside the couch, and lazily, her hand reached down and brushed the sleek hilt. The blade's song flared up eagerly in her mind—mystical, powerful, alive—and it was only with some difficulty that the young woman managed to remove her hand and set it on the pillow by her face. Tomorrow, hopefully after seeing her family and perhaps taking a few minutes to relax, she would need to speak with Vantal and see how much HyReCo had prepared and what their course of action should be. Tomorrow, she—

Her thought snapped off as she felt the familiar icy hand of the Warrior's Spirit settle over her own. Within seconds, she felt her eyelids grow heavier. She had since given up trying to fight against this kind of tiredness, and at any rate, she was looking forward to seeing the armored warrior again. She closed her eyes and let dark sleep cover her.

* * *

When her eyes opened next, Lin found herself standing in the field of tall grass once more. As eerie as the baking, still prairie was, it was something she was familiar with. She didn't know how long she would be wandering under the sun for—if her last meeting with the man was any indication, the Warrior's Spirit could appear pretty much whenever he wanted to—but she figured she would stumble across him when the time was right, and not a moment before. With that in mind, she struck off under the empty, vaulting sky, brushing aside the murmuring stalks of grass to make her way across the silent field.

It couldn't have been more than an hour after that, though—the sun never moved from its post at the top of the sky, so it was impossible to tell just how long it had been—that Linkali's next armful of cool stalks of grass brought her into that small clearing. The young woman wiped an arm across her forehead, smiling in greeting at the armored warrior standing there. Her suspicions about him were far from forgotten, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy his presence. Without his help, she never could have gotten as far in her quest as she had. He had been a gentle guide and a welcome mentor. Looking at him, she again sensed a warm smile from beneath his golden visor.

"You are glowing with health tonight," he remarked playfully, sounding honestly glad for that.

"Health or sweat," Lin joked. The Spirit chuckled softly. "Thank you, though. For what you did for me the last time. I really appreciated it." Her dark blue eyes backed up her spoken gratitude completely. Without his help, she certainly wouldn't have been able to sleep for as long or as deeply as she had, and that night of solid rest had made all the difference for her.

"I am glad to have helped," the man replied, bowing slightly. He paused, looking over her briefly. "You have finally completed the first part of your quest, Lin. The Master Sword has been reborn, and its power to repel evil restored." He stood a little taller. "All that remains now is to defeat Ganon."

Linkali's left hand strayed towards her hip, where she figured her sword would appear any second now. (Or at least that she would suddenly remember it being there from the start.) "We were planning to spar tonight?" she asked. "I could use the extra practice, if my performance in the Spirit Temple was any indication."

As her fingers brushed the empty air where the hilt of her sword would normally be, the Warrior's Spirit shook his head. "No," he told her, "though we will certainly tackle that another night. Tonight, Lin, I merely wish to speak with you."

Lin let her hand fall back at her side; a dark glow of disappointment smoldered in her dark blue eyes for a moment before dying out. She couldn't help but wonder the implications of that, though. Talk? Could it be that tonight she would finally get the Spirit to answer the questions he refused to answer the night before she had gone off seeking Rauru? Goddesses, she hoped so! Although, looking at him now, she couldn't help but wonder if she already knew the answers.

The Warrior's Spirit sighed softly, taking a few steps closer. One gauntleted hand came to rest on her shoulder. Linkali looked up at the golden visor obscuring his face and saw a rippled reflection of herself. He stood there for a moment, then removed his hand and stepped back. "There is still a certain hostility in your heart," the Spirit said slowly. "A dislike, a scorn. It is unwarranted and undeserved, and more than that, it could prove detrimental to your quest if you continue to refuse to embrace that which you have been pushing aside all this time."

"What do you mean, Spirit?" Lin asked, though she knew only too well what he was referring to.

"You should not be so scornful of the Hero of Time. After all," he said, placing a hand on his visor, "his legacy is your destiny." With a slow, but deliberate movement, the Spirit removed his helmet and revealed his face to Linkali for the first time.

His face was that of a grown man, with the strong jawline she had glimpsed in snatches here and there in their meetings. He had a strong chin, a straight nose that was somewhat pointed, and a solid brow. Despite the clean-cut edges of masculinity to his face, some of his features—such as his cheekbones and the area around his eyes—were soft enough to give him a vaguely boyish look; to be quite honest, if the carving on the late Hero's sarcophagus had been of the same young man at an older age, its face would have been the face in front of Lin now. Blond bangs the golden color of ripe hay, somewhat flattened from being pressed down by the heavy visor, fell in front of his eyes—eyes a shade of dark, deep blue that Lin had only ever seen in a mirror before tonight.

Soul-eyes. The eyes of the Hero.

"I figured it was you under there," Linkali said, not surprised in the slightest. The armored man, on the other hand, looked somewhat startled. "You're him—the Hero of Time. Link."

The quiet stillness of the prairie seemed to deepen to a level of silence never felt before; the shrill, distant cry of the lone hawk had started up, but when Lin had made her declaration, it swiftly tapered off into silence. The still air seemed to grow even stiller, if that were even possible. The two Hylians stood beneath the baking-hot sun without a word.

Link stared for a few moments longer, his mouth hanging slightly agape with the unexpected revelation. Clearly he had expected the young woman to be at least somewhat surprised by him; Lin had turned the tables and left him speechless. He twitched, gave himself a small shake, and nodded. "Yes," he replied softly. "That is who I am." He paused for a few seconds, then asked, "What led you to that conclusion, since it seems as if you have known for some time?"

Linkali smirked, honestly glad he had asked. "For one thing," she said, holding up a finger, "I don't put much faith in benevolent spirits who wander around giving handy advice. Whoever you were, you had to be someone with a vested interest in the success of my mission."

"Granted," Link allowed after a small pause.

Lin almost laughed, honestly feeling mischievous about this whole affair. Had he really thought she was completely oblivious? Still, she controlled herself. Now wasn't the time to get cocky. He had asked how she grasped his identity before he'd even revealed it, and she felt obligated to explain herself in full."Secondly," she added, "you showed me places only the Hero of Time could have seen. You showed me the Ice Cavern and the Well—the _Hero's_ memories of the Well! Now, unless you went rooting around in a dead man's brain to find those, I'd think it was pretty likely that you would have had those memories at your disposal after making them for yourself."

Link nodded slowly, a wry smirk twisting at his lips; there was a small shard of embarrassment in his eyes, and Lin knew he was somewhat ashamed that she had found him out before he had gotten the chance to fully reveal it himself. "How long have you known, then?" he asked.

"How long have I _known_?" the young woman repeated. "About two minutes, ever since you took off your helmet and I got a good look at your eyes." The Hero nodded fairly. "How long have I _suspected_, though?...Around the time I realized that in one of our meetings, you had shown me part of the Ice Caverns, literally, the exact room, down to the last tiny detail."

The blond balked, glancing to the side. "Shortly after I had taken you there, only to have you travel to that forgotten place yourself, I began to feel that I had severely underestimated how competent you were," he muttered. "I sensed that you were beginning to discover who I was. Hoping to secure my cover for just a bit longer, I took you only to neutral places—the field, the mountain…"

"Even the mountain was slightly reminiscent of Death Mountain," Linkali pointed out, recalling her first visit there. It had been the night after the Warrior's Spirit had taken her to the sun-baked place to practice archery; she remembered looking up at the slopes and feeling a faint sense of nostalgia different from those the Temples had evoked. A sense that _she_ had seen it for herself at some point, rather than some buried piece of her spirit recalling it.

Very slowly, Link turned his eyes back to her. There was a fine gleam of impatience in his dark eyes. "Not everyone is perfect, Lin," he said with an air of _stop being such a smartass, kid._ The younger Hylian would have laughed, save for one thing.

"If that's the case, then why would you show me, just a few weeks later, your own memories of the Well?" she asked.

"I was hoping that you might have dismissed the Ice Caverns as nothing more than a clever bit of imagery—a literal example of the message I was seeking to convey," the Hero replied. "And I also knew that showing you the location of the Lens of Truth would do you more good than merely telling you where it lay. I was not sure if you were still so suspicious of my true identity that you would refuse to believe me."

"Considering who I was beginning to think I was dealing with?" The young woman laughed. "I probably would have trusted you, to be honest." Link smiled a bit more easily, nodding. Whether he now regretted showing her those memories or not, it wasn't clear. He said nothing on the matter, but instead motioned to the large, smooth stones that lay around the edges of the clearing. Lin followed him over, easing herself down carefully on the gray, sun-heated rock.

"There is one more thing I wish to ask you, Lin," the armored man began slowly, leaning against the same stone on which the young woman had chosen to seat herself. Linkali nodded for him to continue. "Why is it that, if you knew who I was beneath my visor, you continued to enjoy my company, respect me, and value my advice?" He turned his head to look at her, and there was a sharp edge to his eyes that she'd never dreamed she might see from the gentle, patient Warrior's Spirit. "You resent and scorn the man beneath the armor, after all."

Linkali froze, biting her lower lip uncomfortably. Well. That had certainly put her on the spot, and from the look in the armored Hero's eyes, Link knew it. He was not angry with her, nor did he hate her for the way she felt—did he understand that it was just how she had been raised?—but he was certainly none too pleased with her right now. (She could tell this was something that had been bothering him for some time now, that the girl he was working so hard to help succeed resented who he truly was.) The Hylian youth sighed, one hand rubbing the back of her neck as her eyes dropped to her lap. "Spi—…Link," she said, correcting herself; might as well use his name now that she knew it for certain. "I…I just…"

"Be honest." His voice was gentler now, but not much. He clearly wanted her to still feel pinned by the question, but he didn't want to make her hate him for it either. "I want to know."

"I…" Lin sighed again, still staring at the hands lying in her lap. "When you faced King Ganon, the night you died," she began hesitantly, "I…I know it's dishonorable—some might even say cowardly—to flee a battle, but…There is such a thing as a _tactical retreat._" There, she said it. She'd gone and thrown it out there. She figured she had probably just insulted his courage or something like that, and that the gentle, caring warrior from her dreams was going to explode in defensive anger. But as the silence stretched out, Linkali began to wonder just what he was waiting for. Slowly, wary of looking up at him and seeing pure hatred in his eyes, she lifted her gaze to meet his.

Link was utterly confused. Confused, and nothing more.

"How do you mean that?" he asked.

"I mean…in that final battle, you…you kept standing up to him, even though it was clear you weren't going to win," Linkali said. "You got too carried away in your…I mean, I _guess_ that's what happened. That like the bearers of the Triforce of Courage between the two of our times, you got swept up and ignored the possibility of running away to fight another day."

Link still looked profoundly confused.

"…You stood up to him, and after a skirmish, he crushed you with a single blow," Lin said. The Hero of Time continued to stare.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, sounding mystified.

The young Hylian hesitated, frowning slightly in her own confusion. After a moment, she stumbled onto what she felt to be a powerful insight. "Or is that something you don't remember?" she asked, wondering if this could be what cleared up the confusion between them. "I could see how you might not remember your own death, since it was your own, but—"

"He did not crush me with a single blow. He threw me against a wall."

"—What?"

Now it was Linkali's turn to stare in disbelief as Link explained himself. "In the middle of the fight—which I admit was not going well for me—he caught me off my guard and knocked me flying," he told her. "I collided with a piece of stone rubble from when his tower collapsed around us, and the force of impact broke my neck." The dead Hero rubbed the back of his neck, seemingly unconsciously, as if the memory caused him pain. "I died on the spot."

Linkali stared, shocked into perfect speechlessness. All her life, she had been told that the Hero of Time had met his end by his own stupidity and recklessness, and in doing so, had failed all of Hyrule and doomed them to suffer under Ganon's harsh hand. But now she had heard from the mouth of the man himself that his death had been…an accident. (She hardly heard Link continue to speak: _"I could not have made a tactical retreat, as you said, because I was blocked into the fight. There was a barrier I could not cross, though if not for that, I would likely have tried to get away if the tide of battle had still refused to turn in my favor."_) True, Link's demise had only happened because he had failed to keep his guard up, but Lin had been in enough battles by now to know that it wasn't exactly an easy thing to do; Nayru knew she had left herself wide open to numerous attacks in the past. It might have been possible to prevent it, but in all truth, _possible_ was very different from _doable._ Hylians might have to live under the rule of the Evil King, but it wasn't because their Hero had gotten too full of himself and refused to flee the fight before he was slain. It was because their Hero had been caught by an unexpected blow in the middle of the fight and struck a chunk of rock at a very unlucky angle.

That was all. The Hero of Time wasn't a failure, nor was he a fool. He was a man who had hit some very bad luck—and a very solid rock—at a very unfortunate time for the people he was fighting to liberate. It wasn't stupidity or delusions of grandeur that had been his undoing. It was a simple mistake, a single moment of carelessness, and a very bad trajectory. Imagine what could have happened, if somehow, by the grace of the Goddesses, he had hit the wall with his leg or arm. He would be bruised, possibly have some sort of fracture to worry about, but he would have been alive, and probably could have carried on the fight to the end. He could have been celebrated as a Hero instead of reviled as a failure!

_Was that in the story Zelda gave me?_ Oh Goddesses, Lin was afraid to look into those books again with the knowledge she had now. She hadn't read the ending, the final battle; she didn't even know if it was included in the story, though she was pretty sure it was. When she had gotten up to that point, she had closed the book and put it out of sight and out of mind. At the time, she hadn't wanted to read how the young man—who she had found herself starting to respect and admire—met his end like a stubborn fool. She hadn't touched the books since, but now she was starting to feel a sickening weight in her belly. If the truth about the final battle was indeed included in those books, and she had read it, so many things would have gone differently through her journeys. She wouldn't have had to hide her eyes every time someone mentioned the late Hero of Time and connected him to her. She wouldn't have been so uneasy about her destiny. She wouldn't have picked that fight with Aldez over what the old woman had seemed to be implying. She wouldn't have been so conflicted and uncomfortable with who she was.

A hand came to rest gently on her knee, and Linkali jumped, jerked from her thoughts by the sudden touch. Link was smiling up at her gently. There was a gleam of comprehension in his eyes; he now understood why she had felt the way she did, and did not hold it against her. "You cannot change the course of the past," he told her. "What has been done, is done." Smiling weakly, the young woman nodded.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to figure it out," Lin murmured sheepishly. The armored warrior smiled calmly up at her.

"There is no need for apologies, Lin," he said. "It was a misunderstanding, but it has been cleared up now." He glanced up at the sky, almost as if trying to gauge the time, even though the sun was stationary in this place. "That was but one matter about which I wished to speak with you tonight," he added after a few minutes of silence. "There are many more things I must say." He looked at her with the same gentle smile that Linkali had been sensing from him so many times throughout their meetings. "If you are willing to hear me out, that is."

"I'm all ears," the young woman replied, smiling in return. She balked, glancing up at the empty sky. "Though I do ask that we go somewhere a little less…hot, if that's all right?"

Link hesitated before he answered, looking slightly confused. _He's been dead so long that he's forgotten what is and isn't pleasant to the living,_ Lin thought, though she wasn't quite sure how she knew that was what had been on his mind.

"The forest is right behind us," the Hero said, gesturing with his arm. Lin followed his sweep and saw that indeed, the lush grove stood behind them at the edge of the field, even though she was pretty sure it hadn't been there before. Link held out his other hand to her with a polite smile. Laying her hand atop his for balance, the girl slid down from her perch and onto the dry, scrubby grass. Together, the two of them made their way into the trees, stepping out of the glaring heat and into the shaded coolness of the forest. Hollow warblers trilled in the trees, out of sight, as they treaded the earthy paths.

"Do you know what it means to be courageous, Lin?" he asked after a while. Linkali turned her eyes up to his, then back down to the trail, frowning slightly in thought.

"I guess it means…being without fear," she said, shrugging. "To face up to the things that no one else will. To fight the battles that others are too afraid to fight for themselves. To do things that are dangerous but necessary without hesitation because you have no fear."

"You are wrong." Linkali looked back at the armored warrior curiously. Link wasn't even looking at her. His blue eyes were focused on the path ahead of them; his expression was part thoughtful, part amused. "Courage is far from the absence of fear—in fact, those who are courageous are certainly allowed to be fearful at times in their life." He sighed, his frown deepening slightly as his eyes grew distant; he seemed to be staring at some far-off memory. "Nayru knows, I was absolutely terrified for parts of that last battle. Each time I fell to the ground, I feared that I would never rise again. I feared that I would fail the people who depended on me, that I would leave Princess Zelda undefended and within Ganon's grasp, that in my failure I would doom Hyrule to suffer for eternity under the hand of the man I could not subdue."

_You kind of did,_ Lin thought. She figured he didn't need reminding of the fact, though, so she kept the words to herself. Link sighed and looked back at her, his lips curled up slightly in a sad sort of smile.

"Courage is not being without fear," he told her gently. "It is facing up to the things no one else will, even if they frighten you as well. It is soldiering on and taking up the fight that others will not fight, even if you would rather be cowering alongside them. Courage is doing things that are dangerous but necessary _despite_ your fear." He looked ahead again. "Towards the end of the fight, I was terrified. The Sages could not break through the barrier that kept me trapped with my foe, and it truly seemed as though my only escape would come through death or victory. I knew I was growing weaker, and that Ganon did not seem to be tiring at all. It truly seemed hopeless for me, and I was afraid that I would die there and leave my quest unfinished." A small, grim smile tugged at his lips. "At the time, I was unaware that there would be others to inherit the Triforce of Courage and my destiny to save Hyrule—I feared that I was the only one who would ever be able to raise the Blade of Evil's Bane against Ganon."

"There were others," Linkali murmured. The dead Hero nodded. "Quite a few, if Zelda is to be believed."

"Yes. But none of them could bear the weight of the Triforce of Courage." The blond warrior smiled grimly. "It demands much of those it chooses to carry its power. That you were born with it and have carried its weight throughout your life thus far speaks much about your strength."He laid a hand on her shoulder, a warm and solid weight. "You have handled it marvelously, and I respect you for your strength." His soul-blue eyes backed up his words completely, and Lin dropped her eyes sheepishly, flustered by the praise. **(1)**

They walked in silence for a time longer before Link spoke up again. "What do you think it means to be a Hero?" he asked calmly.

Linkali rubbed the back of her neck, turning that over. "To protect those who can't protect themselves, whether they are weak or simply too afraid," she said. "To take a stand for those who can't or won't. To serve them and defend them, until the threat is gone or _you_ are gone." Curious to see his reaction to that, she looked up from the path. A mischievous grin burst across her face at what she saw. "You weren't expecting me to say that!" she teased. Link's eyebrows lifted slightly. "You weren't! I can tell because—…oh dear _Farore._" She blinked, her mouth falling partially open with stunned realization. "…You really _can_ see everything in our eyes," she whispered. Link laughed warmly, nodding in agreement.

"A blessing and a curse, is it not?" Lin nodded in agreement as the armored Hero laughed again.

After a few moments, the Kokorian woman looked back at Link. "So tell me," she began. Link nodded, looking over at her expectantly. "When the time comes to take my stand against the Evil King…what do I need to do? Every enemy I have fought up to this point has had some kind of critical weak point, a weapon that it's most vulnerable to, a certain way of taking it down. I realize you weren't able to finish the fight, but…Did you have any kind of strategy?"

Link hummed softly, his eyes narrowing in thought as he tried to remember the tactics he had employed so many years ago. "Corrupt and wicked as Ganon is, there are two weapons that are guaranteed to have an effect on him," he said slowly. "Both of said weapons are at your disposal. The first is the Light Arrows; the second, the Blade of Evil's Bane." The dead Hero looked down at his successor solemnly. "Strike first with the arrows. The power of Light will stun and blind him, but only for so long. While he is incapacitated, you must make your way around him quickly, and strike at his tail."

"What will I need to dodge from him?" Linkali asked. Link gave her a steady look.

"The worst you will have to fear from him are his blades," the man replied. "Despite the years, they have not fallen into disrepair, and are just as lethal as when I faced him." His expression darkened. "He has been waiting for another Hero to rise, one who he thinks can truly prove to be a challenge to him, so that he may have the satisfaction of truly crushing a foe." Lin swallowed hard, a nervous glitter brightening her eyes, but Link didn't seem to notice; he continued to stare ahead, deep in his memories of the dark night that had proved to be his last. "He was…not fully satisfied by his fight against me. It ended too abruptly, and he feels as though he was cheated out of his fun." The blond sighed. "Make no mistake, Lin—he knows what you plan to do, but he has not interfered or tried to stop you because he is looking for a new plaything. He has allowed you to do all that you have, knowing in his heart that should he have chosen, he could have struck you down when you were unskilled and helpless. He has done so because he wishes to have more fun in tearing you apart, so that you will last longer in battle; he does not fear you in the slightest."

Linkali bit her lower lip, her blue eyes bright with terror. Now that everything had fallen into place and she had an even grander scope of what awaited her, she realized that everything she had faced up to this point was trivial in comparison to the battle yet to be fought. Ganon was waiting for her, waiting to tear her apart, make her suffer and bleed and slowly, slowly die. She had seen the power of the Six Sages—and in some cases, had virtually stood against it in battle—and Ganon was an entity powerful enough to make them run and hide. The legendary Sages had sealed themselves away so that they could merely live to stand against him at a later time. _He had to have known they were still alive and out there. Did he just let them run away, so that he could tease and torment them by destroying every Hero they and the Goddesses brought before him?_ Of all the things she had faced so far in her journeys, she had yet to face anything half as powerful as the King of Evil himself. Darunia and Impa in their sealed forms, the Iron Knuckle in the Spirit Temple…all of them paled in comparison to the final demon she was set on a course to slay. And that final demon knew she was coming for him, and plainly believed her to be so little of a threat to him that he had allowed her to run off on quests and gain skills and strength to destroy him, confident in the knowledge that in the end, _he_ would be the one to crush _her_.

"I'm scared." The two words slipped out of her in a meek, un-Lin-like whisper.

Link balked at her quiet squeak, turning to look at her, his expression one of genuine concern. "Speak to me," he ordered gently. "Tell me what has you so troubled."

Linkali swallowed hard, her arms wrapping tightly around herself as she hunched her shoulders in. Link reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. After a minute or so, the youth raised her eyes. "Do you think I can do this?" she asked in a whisper, her expression almost desperately hopeful. She was more in need of reassurance now than she could ever recall being; her complete and utter loss of faith in herself following her first fight against the corrupted Impa seemed almost amusing by comparison. She looked to Link, the man whose destiny she had been born to complete, silently begging on her knees for him to believe in her.

"No." The sincerity in the man's eyes felt like the final nail in the coffin. Lin found she hadn't the breath to make any noise above a tiny, almost inaudible whimper. But not for long.

Link offered her a calm smile, and when he spoke, his eyes continued to shine with nothing but confidence and sincerity. "Lin, I _know_ you can do this, and much more. No evil should be able to stand in your way. You have enough raw courage and determination to win the day. You have the Master Sword."

The Hylian girl sighed, glancing to the side. "So did you," she muttered rebelliously, her words shaky.

Link sighed. "_Yes_," he said bluntly. "Yes, I had the same courage and determination, and the same mythical blade that you will have, and indeed, I failed in my task and condemned Hyrule to suffer under Ganon until a new hero could rise. I went in with everything that you will have, and I failed miserably. It is entirely possible that history will repeat itself. It's possible that you will go into that battle, be horribly wounded, make some reckless mistake like I did, and pay for it with your life!" Linkali flinched, drawing in a shaky breath. The armored man set his finger under his successor's chin, and gently raised her eyes to meet his. "But Lin…the fact that that possibility exists should not stop you from ever trying."

Lin gazed up at him in silence. "I remember, more than once during the battle, feeling weary and hopeless," the dead Hero continued. "I was desperate, and I was terrified. I felt as if I could not continue, that if I did not simply lay down and die, things would only grow worse. More likely than not, I would have succumbed to that despair, if not for two things."

He fell silent after that, and after attempting to swallow the lump in her throat, Linkali asked quietly, "What?"

"The first was Princess Zelda," the armored warrior replied. "She stood outside the barrier and followed me every step of the way. When I was thrown aside, she would kneel beside me on the opposite side of the wall and stay there until I rose again. When I landed a blow, she shouted with triumph, and when I took one, she screamed as if my pain were her own. But more than that, she never stopped believing in me." A steely edge touched his eyes. "She never let up on her encouragements, never stopped telling me that she had faith in me; she told me to keep fighting and to never give in."

Lin noticed that a warm glow of love had started to burn in his eyes, though it started to mellow from a romantic love to a more platonic feeling as he continued to speak. "The second was Navi. You've read and heard the stories enough to know: She was my partner." The girl nodded; she noticed that he said the word with the same emphasis and reverence as Navi always did. "She stuck beside me through it all, despite the knowledge that Ganon could do far more harm to her with one sweep of his hand than he could do to me with ten such blows. While the Princess shouted encouragement from behind the wall that separated us, Navi whispered it into my ear. To have someone there beside me, regardless of whether or not she could wield a sword or bow to aid me, meant more than words can describe." Link's eyes gleamed. "And both of them will be there for you as well," he reminded her. "Both of them love you and believe in you, and want you to do the best you can."

Lin smiled weakly, a faint flicker of confidence darting through her eyes. "You have what it takes to defeat him once and for all," Link told her. "You have the power to make him regret allowing you to grow strong enough to take him on, and you can bring him to his knees once and for all." He smiled warmly. "I believe in you, Lin."

"Thank you," the young woman whispered. Link slid his hands down from her shoulders, and without hesitation, Linkali darted forward and wrapped her arms around him tightly. The two Hylians embraced firmly, neither seeing the need for words. Then, after a time, Link pulled back.

"Our time is wearing thin for tonight's meeting," he said. "You will be needing as much rest as you can get in the coming days." Lin nodded. "But before I send you off to sleep, I feel I must warn you." The armored Hylian stepped back, frowning down at the ground in thought. "Ganon's blades are not the only thing you must fear."

Lin made a bold attempt to swallow her heart, which had leapt into her chest and begun to pound fiercely at those words. "What?" she asked, somewhat shakily.

Link looked back up at her. "Not long at all before he threw me against the stone that would break my neck, Ganon did…something strange," he said. "Something that I still do not fully understand. The Triforce of Power burst into light on the back of his hand, and the Master Sword…for lack of better word, it _changed._" The man shook his head slowly. "It seemed to grow heavier in my hands, and the blade lost much of its luster." Lin's eyes widened, but Link didn't seem to notice; he appeared rather lost in his memories. "I remember a strange feeling, like little sparks were jumping from the hilt and biting into my hand and arm at times, and the longer I held it, the more frequent and painful the sparks became. Perhaps the worst of all, though, was the fact that it fell silent."

"Silent?" Lin echoed warily. Link nodded.

"Or very nearly. It had raised its voice in a powerful roar all through the battle, but once the Triforce of Power gleamed, it began to sound distant and muffled, and steadily faded away into silence." The former Hero folded his arms over his chest. "Whatever Ganon did, it must have somehow corrupted or broken the Master Sword's spirit—hence why the blade shattered so easily when it struck the wall shortly thereafter. A blade of that caliber doesn't break without reason, after all."

"And you don't even know what it was that he did?" Linkali asked. Link nodded. The young woman frowned slightly. "Then how do you expect me to avoid it? For all I know, he could pull that on me right as I walk onto the field of battle!"

"I find it unlikely that he would," Link mused, "considering he is looking to use you for his own amusement." His expression grew somewhat wry. "And I believe there is a way for you to avoid it: Do not be a fool. Looking over the events of the battle, I believe he may only be able to do such as he did at close range. He feigned unconsciousness, presumably to lure me in closer, and while I was preparing to strike, _that_ was when the Master Sword began to behave oddly." He looked at the young woman firmly. "If I had to give you advice on this matter, I would say to stay far away from him, unless you have stunned him with a Light Arrow, or he has weakened to the point that the Princess can hold him down for you to strike."

"I'll do what I can," Lin said softly. She gave a small smile. "Thank you. For everything."

Link accepted her thanks with a nod and a smile. "There are still a few days yet before you must face the Evil King in battle," he said. "I will see you again, and do all that is in my power to hone your skills ever closer to perfection." He paused. "But for now, I feel it is best if you rested. The days to come will not be easy, Lin, and though it may not seem like it at times, all of what you will be handed is well within your ability to handle." The youth nodded. Link reached out and set his hand on her shoulder, and the forest around them faded into silent black.

"Before you send me off…," Lin began, looking at the armored warrior carefully. Link nodded for her to continue. "I just have one question. The tunic Saria gave me earlier?"

"It was a spare," he assured her after a small pause. "I was buried in the one I died in." Relief fired through Linkali's soul-blue eyes, and she laughed weakly. Link smiled. "If that is all…?"

"Yes."

"Then I believe our meeting tonight is at its end." Link smiled. "I will speak with you again soon." Linkali nodded in agreement, feeling herself start to topple backwards. She relaxed into sleep, settling into what she knew would be a rare moment of peace in the days ahead.

**(1) I just want to point out here that while it could be implied that Link wasn't fit to bear the Triforce of Courage (and that Linkali was the only one who ever could), that isn't true. Link was fit to bear it; he just had some really shitty luck in the final battle.**


	28. 27: Preparations

**Hey! I promise, I'm not dead! School and other things have been keeping me from having the time to write, but I swear I haven't given up on this story yet. Thanks so much for being patient! You guys are all awesome! **

Link was right: Lin would certainly have a few days before anyone was ready to even consider mounting an uprising against Hyrule's dark king. The morning after repairing the Master Sword, she had gone with Zelda to see Vantal. The two women—three, counting Navi, who bobbed beside Lin's shoulder—barely made it halfway across the village common before people started calling out to them. A handful of children stood half behind their mothers, peering out curiously at the strange creature beside the young woman and the unfamiliar blade their fellow Kokorian carried. Some of the more able-bodied men that stood around the village—many of whom Linkali recognized from HyReCo's meetings—seemed more concerned than curious, and most of them looked honestly afraid to see the young woman carrying around what was clearly a blade of great power. (Even if they didn't recognize it as the legendary Master Sword, there was no denying that the sword she had was something no ordinary smith could have created.)

When she went to speak with Vantal later, the would-be warrior would learn that, indeed, no one in Kokoria was ready to fight, except perhaps her. Progress had been horribly slow. For fear of drawing Ganon's attention, HyReCo had only run their training drills and exercises at night; production of newer, stronger weapons was slow, for much the same reason. Of course, now that the Coalition's secret was out, members no longer needed to cut their exercises short to run home before they were missed, but the fact remained that the training programs were far less than ideal. Everyone in Kokoria realized that, but none more so than Lin.

Later on, she would have Vantal call together HyReCo for a meeting. She would stand in front of them, and her eyes would scan the faces of people she knew she might well lead to their deaths. She would stand with one hand on the hilt of the Blade of Evil's Bane, drawing comfort from its gentle humming, and tell them the words that she knew would horrify them until she could explain: That all of their secrecy was pointless, and that the one they were rallying to bring down was very much aware of what they were planning to do. There would be uproar and panic; men and women would cry out in fear, their brittle resolve crumbling like a dried leaf beneath a horse's hoof. Pandemonium would run rampant until Lin could make herself heard to Gotari, who would bellow out a thunderous order for silence several times before some kind of calm would fall. Only then would she be able to explain how what seemed like a nightmare come to life could actually work to their advantage. Plans would be made, precedents set in place, and things would move ever closer to the goal.

All of this would happen, though, in due time. For now, Linkali was simply walking with her elderly friend on one side and her fairy partner on the other, making their way across the village common. They got perhaps halfway to Vantal's home before someone shouted the young woman's name in a voice that was excited to the point of near tears. Lin turned, drawing in her breath in a sharp gasp as she spotted none other than Talina bolting towards her. She didn't think, simply broke away from Zelda's side and ran to meet her little sister. She swept the younger girl off the ground effortlessly, clutching her tightly to her chest; Tali wrapped her arms and legs around her sister in a vice-like grip. The two siblings clung to one another with an almost desperate tightness for several minutes, undisturbed, until Linkali felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

Zelda offered her young friend a warm smile before flicking one hand away from herself. Lin blinked, too caught up in the emotion of the moment to make sense of the gesture. The old woman huffed out a silent laugh. She glanced over her shoulder towards Vantal's home, then back at Lin, and repeated the hand-flick. _Go home,_ the gesture said. _Just go home. You can worry about other things later._

Linkali's face split into a broad grin, and she just barely managed to whisper a choked "Thank you" before looking back at her sister. Tali beamed up at her, tears of joy already streaming down her face. The older Hylian girl chuckled softly. "What's Mom making for dinner, Tal?" she asked, her voice thick with emotion.

"Anything you want, I bet," the girl replied, scrubbing her cheeks dry before settling back against her sister's chest.

"I hope so," Lin murmured, starting to walk in the direction of her own home. "How's Russie been?"

The warrior knew, in the back of her mind, that sooner rather than later, she would have to face up to responsibility. She would have to talk to Vantal, check on the progress HyReCo had made, and get them ready to face the Evil King. But that all could wait, if only until this evening. Right now, Linkali knew she had something far more important to take care of.

* * *

"So I've been think—ah!"

"Move your mouth less and your arm more, Bartal!"

"Fine. Anyway, I've been thinking—hey! Careful!"

"_You_ be careful! You're the one who keeps running his mouth while there's live steel in play!"

"So put away the live steel and let me talk, Lin!"

Linkali sighed, lowering her arm and fixing her friend with a firm stare. Bartal stabbed his sword into the ground and leaned on it casually. "_I've been thinking,"_ he said again, stressing the words flippantly, "that things are really starting to improve."

"Din's fires, I'd hope so," the young woman huffed, sheathing the Master Sword at her hip. One hand reached up, fingers combing through her damp bangs as she brushed them out of her eyes. Though a far cry from the same blazing heat her dreams with the Hero of Time had had, there was no denying that Hyrule was approaching summer and that the temperatures were starting to rise. "Working day in and day out for as long as we have?" She set her hands on her hips and turned her eyes to the cloud-strewn sky, shaking her head. "Honestly, if we weren't even slightly better prepared than we were when I came back, I'd probably head off to Ganon's tower myself."

Two weeks had passed now since Linkali had returned to her home village with the reborn Master Sword. In that span of time, HyReCo's preparations for the final confrontation had increased nigh-exponentially. The snap of bowstrings and clang of hammer on anvil laid down the rhythm for the ringing voices of clashing blades—the anthem that reverberated through Kokoria from dawn to dusk. Women who would rather help than harm were busy indoors and out, assembling kits of bandages and salves that would be sent with the small army and instructing HyReCo's soldiers in their use. Children darted around eagerly, gathering things from gardens at their mothers' requests or begging to be allowed to use the shears to cut strips for bandages.

If there was one thing Lin had noticed as the second week wore on, it was the way the very atmosphere in her village changed. It was generally agreed that in Hyrule, under King Ganon, the less people realized you existed, the better, and Kokoria had not been an exception to this unwritten rule. The inhabitants of the goat-herding village had kept to themselves and their loved ones; you kept your head down, especially out in the open air, and you did your level best to go unnoticed. They had walked with heads lowered and shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on the ground—an unconscious display of their absolute terror of attracting the attention of the wrong people. They were, despite what HyReCo might have thought over the years, perfectly bent to the hand of their dark ruler. A people who lived in fear of being seen and punished, a people who never looked at each other long enough to unite as a single force, might _dream_ of rising up, but nothing would ever come to fruition…unless the people had someone who was not afraid of punishment to guide them.

Things had changed, and now HyReCo had such a person. Linkali had broken free of the chains of fearful oppression she and all Hylians had been raised under, and she was, slowly but surely, helping the others do the same. As their training progressed under her careful watch, their confidence steadily began to grow, and with that came a rebirth of how they saw one another. Two men who might have never sought one another out as companions were placed together as sparring partners after drawing lots; in between rounds, they began to talk, and soon discovered that both of them had a son of eight who was their greatest treasure, that they both had a loyal dog who slept at the foot of their bed each night, that they both disliked eggs for breakfast, and that both felt themselves to be utterly henpecked by their wives sometimes. A bond formed between them, a _friendship_ grew, and the more they found they had in common with one another, the more they spoke. The more they spoke, the stronger that bond grew, and the more comfortable they became with correcting one another during sparring matches. The more they corrected each other, the more their skills improved and the more confident they became in themselves and their abilities.

Linkali had, just the day before this one, stood at the edge of the village common, staring in silent appreciation and amazement. Women sat on their porches in clumps, cutting bandages and gossiping in normal, conversational tones of voice. A ragtag group of children bolted, screaming and laughing, across the open grass. Two men walked towards the well, both with a blade strapped to their hip in plain sight, discussing their most recent round and how they thought they might improve. The young woman was awed. Kokoria was, for perhaps the first time since its founding, actually _bustling._ There was an energy, a spirit, that Lin knew she had never felt from this place. She had only ever felt it among the Gerudo at the Desert Colossus; the desert warriors had lived a life without fear of attack from their former King, going about their business without wondering if they were being watched by some wicked and vengeful entity. The people of Kokoria were living much the same way now, and Lin supposed, in a wry sort of way, that it was all thanks to Ganon himself. His arrogance—his treatment of this whole thing as a game hosted by Fate and the Goddesses for his own amusement —made HyReCo virtually invincible until they moved to strike. Why would he spoil the game so soon, when he clearly wanted to draw everything out and enjoy himself?

"I have to wonder, though," Bartal murmured, and at his voice, Linkali struggled to drag herself out of her own thoughts to listen. "How are we going to figure out when we're ready to head out?"

"I…I'm not quite sure," Lin replied at length, her voice somewhat distant. She reached up, one hand rubbing the side of her face. "It's…hard to say."

Bartal paused, leaning in a little closer to inspect his friend. More specifically, to inspect her eyes, to ensure that they matched up with the answer she would give to his next question. "You okay, Lin?"

Linkali huffed out a sigh, glancing away. "I'll be fine," she assured him. _Emphasis on the future tense. The people of Kokoria might be changing, but they haven't been doing it completely by themselves._

There came a problem with being the first person to figure out how to believe in one's abilities and be confident with a weapon, and that was that you then had to be the one to help everyone else do the same. As time had gone on and a few of the bright sparks had been able to step up and help the others train, the load had been lessened, but only by so much. Linkali had been, and still was for the most part, the person in charge of turning a group of meek, half-trained Hylian men and women into a confident fighting force capable of holding their own against the Evil King's forces.

Sure, leading the village was Gotari's responsibility, and commanding HyReCo was Vantal's, but neither man had ever subdued a Rogon. Neither of them had ever held their own against a twisted shadow of a woman who could duplicate herself into countless copies, each of which had the same strength as the original. Neither of them had gone through a desert temple to retrieve an ancient treasure as part of a bargain, a temple which a group of fearsome female warriors wouldn't consider braving anymore. Lin was the _de facto_ leader of the nascent army, for the confidence she already had and the experience that had helped her develop it. Those with questions came to her for answers, and those with insecurities came to her for reassurance; in the very beginning, the girl hadn't been able to go two minutes in the open without someone tentatively asking her to watch their technique or to actually spar with them herself. And what were her options? Turn them down for a moment of peace and run the risk of losing them when the day of battle came because they were ill-prepared, or swallow her weariness and do her best to help them develop their skills to the fullest. There really wasn't a choice on the matter.

"You won't be fine if you keep going the way you are," Bartal pointed out, drawing the young woman back to the present again.

"Maybe not, but what other choice do I have? Slack off and let everyone suffer?"

"Lin…"

Linkali sighed, setting her hand back on the Master Sword's hilt; the blade gave a thunderous purr in response to her touch, its eagerness to be drawn and swung coming through loud and clear. "Come on," she muttered. "Let's keep going. If you stand still too long, your muscles cool off and get stiff."

"But if you stretch"—Bartal laid one arm across his chest, bringing the other one up to push the stretch further—"then your muscles cool off and you don't get stiff."

"Bartal, we aren't finished," Lin said, her voice growing a little bit sharper; tiring days and nights of worry were catching up with her. She drew her blade. The Master Sword's steady purr exploded in the back of her mind in a wild, eager song. The Hylian girl stepped back, setting herself into position; she looked back at her friend, her brow furrowing in the beginnings of a fierce scowl. "Come on, let's go again. You're still weak on your defense."

"Lin…"

"We'll go hillboarding after this round," she growled. "All right?" The amber-eyed boy stayed as he was. "Bartal, look, I'm not trying to be a slave-driver here, but I can't think of anything I want _less_ than to take you up to that tower and lose you after the first encounter because you don't know how to guard against—"

"Lin."

The young woman fell silent, glaring at her friend. Bartal grasped the hilt of his sword and tugged it free from the earth, then took a few steps towards her. He reached out, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "Lin," he repeated. "Take it easy. I'll go this round with you, all right?" He smirked. "But after this round, we aren't going hillboarding." He winked one golden-brown eye. "We're putting you to bed." Linkali smirked dryly, raising her blade and moving in.

* * *

A few hours of napping later, the world and the people inhabiting it looked much better. Lin sought out Gotari, Vantal, and Zelda, and the four of them—five, if you counted Navi, though the fairy only sat on the youth's shoulder and listened to the conversations quietly—gathered that evening and discussed what their plan of action would be. Linkali was hesitant to nail down a day for them to mobilize, because the last thing she wanted was to commit to something and find out too late that they were all horribly underprepared. Gotari was also unsure, but Vantal and Zelda had a bit more faith in HyReCo.

_There can be no telling how someone will fare in true combat, even with all the training in the world,_ the former princess had written. _But that does not mean everyone will be ill-prepared. You survived with far less training than any of them, Lin, and for weeks now, they have been learning from you. _She had given the young woman a careful look, smiling slightly. _From what I have seen, it is my belief that with another week of the level of training they are currently at, HyReCo will be able to handle anything Ganon can throw at them. Certainly not the man himself, as you are the only one with the level of skill needed to confront him, but they will surely be able to handle his monsters. _Gotari had slowly agreed. Lin still wasn't sure, but after a lot of gentle persuasion, she eventually agreed to making no concrete plans yet. After a week, they would reassess, and from there, either call for more training and preparations or gather supplies and move out.

* * *

That week came and went faster than any other Linkali had ever lived. It seemed like one minute, she was stepping out of Vantal's house with Zelda and Navi flanking her, and the next, she was sitting atop Vantage Hill with Bartal, one hand resting on her faithful hillboard, looking down at the village with her heart in her throat.

_Tomorrow._ That was hardly the day of the final confrontation, but it _was_ the day that she would stand at the head of a group of twenty men and women and lead them towards that battle; it would take nearly a day to reach the outskirts of what had once been Castle Town, and there were plans to stop there for the night before continuing onward to Ganon's castle. HyReCo was ready. The small nursing kits were packed and prepared, safely in the possession of those who had already been instructed on how to use them. The swords and pikes that had been made specifically for this day were sharpened and ready, and the sturdy, undecorated shields had fresh leather straps to hold them. Rations had been packed up and distributed amongst the members of the somewhat ragtag army.

Linkali had undergone her own preparations as well. Earlier that day, she had summoned each of the weapons she had accrued over her journey, with the obvious exception of her bombs, and inspected them carefully. The Hookshot's chain was oiled and cleaned, and the point of its 'hook' sharpened to a point more lethal than ever before. The Fairy Bow had been polished and restrung, and the new quiver she had been given—larger than the one she'd been using up to this point—filled with as many arrows as she could reasonably fit into it. The Megaton Hammer had gotten a fresh strip of leather around its grip, and the Lens of Truth had had its glass thoroughly cleaned. (She'd thought to sharpen the Master Sword, but Navi and Zelda both assured her that it was unnecessary. The legendary blade could be kept sharper by its own powerful spirit and magic than by any whetstone.) The young woman didn't know whether she would be using any of these items, aside from her bow, but she didn't want to be caught unprepared. She'd gotten into a lot of situations in her journey where she had unexpectedly needed a weapon, and she wanted to make sure that, should the need for adaptability arise, she could meet it head-on.

Experience had taught her that she was faster than she was strong, and that her flexibility was what saved her far more reliably than any brute force she might muster. For that reason, Lin declined the shield Bartal and his mother offered her; it was larger and sturdier than the bucklers the rest of HyReCo had, its surface decorated with the red eagle and Triforce that Zelda had said was the mark of the Royal Family. Bartal mentioned that the shield had been in their family for generations, much like the single pauldron he always wore; Linkali reminded herself, with a smirk, that the boy could trace his heritage back to the legendary Knights of Hyrule, coward that he so often was. She turned down the offer of the shield, knowing that she would need to keep herself as light as possible, but when Gotari offered her a shirt of chainmail, she accepted that. It was heavy, yes, but lighter than the shield she didn't really know how to use, and it would help her stay protected better than walking out without anything protective.

The mail shirt was draped over the back of her chair up in the loft, and beneath it was the tunic Saria had presented to her after the Master Sword had been repaired. (The tunic itself had had some minor alterations done. The minute Halvara had seen it, she had forbidden her daughter to wear it to battle; before Linkali could defend herself, her mother had added "That tunic is cut for a man, Lin. It _needs_ to be taken in if it's going to fit you.") On the floor was a pair of boots, and inside one boot—thanks to Lin's fastidious nature—was the pair of socks she would be wearing tomorrow.

While no one had been too fond of the idea of their war leader risking life and limb in dangerous sports, Bartal had still managed—somehow—to sneak both of their hillboards out of the village, and brought Linkali out with him. He knew that, while dangerous, hillboarding was an excellent way to get his friend to loosen up, something Lin had desperately needed. The two had gone shooting down the hills for a few hours before calling it quits, then gone up to the top of the highest hill near their home, which was where they sat now.

Linkali didn't need to see individuals to know just who she was leading into danger tomorrow and where they lived. Uneasily, she found herself staring down at the homes in question and wondering what life would be like for that family if their father, older sister, or uncle never returned. How would they handle their grief? How would work be redistributed among the rest of the family? _Would they blame me for their loss?_ The young woman cringed slightly. Well, she could safely say that she wouldn't find fault with them if they did, but that didn't mean she liked the thought.

A warm hand wrapped around her own. Lin turned to look at Bartal. The other youth offered her a gentle smile, which she returned distractedly before looking back down at Kokoria. She hated herself, in a way. She hated that she hadn't pushed harder to get them to stay, and she hated herself for acknowledging that them coming and risking their lives in her battle was really the best option. These were people who wanted to fight, now more than ever before, and she knew that the more people were there, the less likely she—or anyone else—was to be overwhelmed if Ganon decided to unleash a swarm of monsters at them. HyReCo had been honing its skills as a single unit; members had formed partnerships and were able to fight in beautiful synchrony with their special teammate.

But if there was one thing experience had shown her, it was that nothing was impossible. That synchrony could be broken. Someone could unexpectedly lose their life, and their partner would be left without someone who knew how to guard their back so well. People could—and probably _would_—die as they made their way towards Ganon. And every one of those deaths would rest on Lin's shoulders.

The hand grasping her own squeezed gently. The Hylian girl didn't look away from the surprisingly peaceful village below her. "Bartal?" she said softly.

"Yeah?" the boy replied.

Linkali was silent, her mouth partway open as words stuck and tangled in her throat. She blinked hard, trying to swallow the jumbled mess. A few minutes later, she spoke up again. "Bartal?"

"Yes, Lin?"

The young woman closed her eyes tightly, squeezing her lids together until colors began to burst in front of them. She exhaled shakily, and when she tried to speak this time, her voice came out pinched and tiny: "I'm scared."

Bartal said nothing, simply reached out and wrapped his arms around her tightly. Lin returned the embrace, clawing up handfuls of his tunic in silent terror. Bartal was silent as well, letting his body speak for him. Carefully, he shifted so that her head was pressed against his chest, one hand stroking her hair. He began to rock gently as he held her, doing anything he thought might help to soothe the fearful warrior clinging to him as if her life depended on it.

* * *

The rain stung Linkali's skin, driving against the exposed flesh like furious needles. A gust of wind, bitterly cold against her soaked body, buffeted her and nearly knocked her off her feet. The young woman widened her stance, spreading her feet to give herself a sturdier base to stand on. Her eyes narrowed against the wind and rain, she waited out the gale before reaching for the bow strapped to her hip. _Just like Link said,_ she told herself, her gaze locked on the dark figure looming over her. _Blind him with a Light Arrow, then move in to attack._

The monstrous shadow lumbered closer, its glowing, golden eyes squinting in what was a look of either frustration or twisted delight. Lin bit her lower lip, raising her bow and reaching behind her for the quiver of arrows. She skirted backwards across the ground, which was trembling under the beast's heavy footfalls, and took aim. Slowly but surely, a light began to glow around the quivering tip of the arrow, illuminating the dark battlefield slightly. As her opponent thundered ever nearer, Linkali sent a quick prayer to any Goddess who might be listening and released her shaft. The arrow soared through the air and made its mark on the target. The ground lurched as the Evil King toppled to the ground, stunned for the moment.

Linkali hastily strapped the bow back to one side of her hip, then reached for the sheathed Master Sword on the other. _Hurry! Hurry!_ she could hear Link's voice urging; he sounded as if he were far away from her, though she knew he was close at hand, since he'd been talking to her throughout the fight so far. _You don't have long!_

The youth scrambled to obey, her fingers fumbling and slipping over the wet hilt of the legendary blade. She kept glancing up at the slumped form of her enemy, watching fearfully for any signs of him stirring. "Come on, come _on_," she hissed under her breath as she tried desperately to wrap her hand around the grip of the Master Sword. She'd been having trouble like this throughout the whole battle so far, and it was starting to grate on her. Another powerful gust of wind threatened to knock her to the ground, and the stinging raindrops blinded her; she was forced to drop her head to the side and hold firm until the gale calmed.

_Lin, you have to hurry!_ Link urged frantically. _There isn't much time!_

"I know. I'm trying." Linkali gritted her teeth, giving one last desperate try to grasp her blade. Fortunately, it seemed that a Goddess _had_ been listening to her earlier. Her fingers at last found their grip on the sleek, wet steel, and she pulled the sword free from its sheath as quickly as she could. The Blade of Evil's Bane caught what dim light there was on this dark battlefield and threw it back, shining brilliantly as its wielder held it aloft. Lin caught a brief glimpse of a blurred reflection of her face before she turned her eyes to Ganon.

The massive beast was up. Not merely _getting_ up. No. He was _up._ On his feet and ready for action once again.

_I told you to hurry!_ Link snapped, and the youth who shared a piece of his spirit cringed. _Come on, sheathe your sword and get him with another arrow. _

Brushing aside the fact that the dead Hero was being unusually brisk with her right now, Lin did as she was told. She shoved the Master Sword back into its sheath hastily and sprinted back away from the approaching monstrosity, her hands darting to the bow as she ran. The wooden weapon, unlike her sword, was easy to pull into her grasp. Still watching Ganon carefully, she reached back for an arrow to fire. To her horror, her trembling hand couldn't seem to grasp a shaft, much like it had fumbled the hilt of her sword only moments earlier. Ganon approached, his steps shaking the ground like thunder. Lin couldn't seem to back away quickly enough; no matter how hard she tried, he always seemed to be gaining on her.

"This isn't right," she whispered, her voice shaking as she struggled to grab just one little arrow. "Th-this can't be happening!" She shivered, both with fear and the chill from the rain and wind, as the looming shadow thundered closer. Nothing was going right! She wasn't dead yet, but she honestly had to wonder just how much longer that was going to hold true. At the rate she was going—

Linkali's eyes widened as her cold, clumsy fingers snagged the fletching of one of her arrows. A tiny, hopeful flame flickered to life in her chest, and she pulled the arrow out as quickly as she could without dropping it. Ganon was almost literally on top of her by the time she had fitted it to her bow. It was going to be a close shot, but she could make it. Narrowing her eyes against the pouring rain, the youth focused her magic into the arrow. Golden light began to push back the darkness covering everything so heavily, and the instant she deemed it ready, Lin released her shot and scrambled forwards. Hyrule's monstrous monarch toppled forwards, and the youth who'd felled him made a narrow escape from between his legs, avoiding what would doubtlessly have been a fatal crushing by mere seconds.

"All right, I can do it this time," she whispered, strapping her bow back into place before reaching for her sword. She wrapped her hand around the hilt on the first try, but when she tried to pull it free, her hand slipped right off without so much as budging the blade. Undeterred, though growing worried again, Lin tried again, only to have her fingers glance off the hilt without coming remotely close to grasping it. A horrified whimper straggled out of her throat, and while Link shouted at her to hurry, the young Hylian tried again and again to draw her weapon. She couldn't. Her hand was either completely unable to grab the hilt, or it simply slid right off whenever she tried to unsheathe the blade.

_Lin, what are you doing?_ the former Hero demanded angrily. _Quit fooling around and draw your sword!_

"I'm trying! I'm trying!" Linkali cried, her voice high-pitched and breaking in panic. Her heart pounded against her breastbone so hard she swore it was only a few seconds from bashing its way right out of her chest. Desperately, she struggled to grasp her sword and draw it, only too aware of the timer that was quietly running out the longer she stood there without attacking.

A rumbling grunt shook the battlefield. Lin cringed, gritting her teeth against a wail of frustration. Instead, she focused her energy on getting away from the Evil King, bolting across the rocky ground to put distance between the two of them. She could hear and feel him steadily approaching her, and she scrambled desperately for her bow and an arrow. "Please. Please. Oh, Goddesses have mercy, _please_," she whispered weakly as her fingers slipped off of wood and feather alike. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be _her_ showdown against Ganon.

The young woman didn't even try to clamp down on her loud exclamation of relief when her fingers finally managed to grasp the necessary weapons. The dark beast was looming closer, and he didn't let up when she raised her bow and aimed an arrow straight for the middle of his forehead. Linkali's eyes narrowed against the gust of wind that sprang up. She bit her lower lip and released her shot, praying for a miracle.

It was hard to tell if her prayers had been truly answered, though. Lin didn't see the arrow connect with the Evil King's face—she had a sinking suspicion that it had flown right over his head, its flight thrown off by the wind—and yet Ganon collapsed to the ground as if it had made its mark. Linkali hesitated, frowning slightly as she moved to put aside her bow.

_Lin, attack him!_ Link shouted impatiently.

"I don't know if he's—"

_Does he look like he hasn't been stunned?_

"N-no, but—"

_Lin, the Goddesses didn't choose you to fool around at the final confrontation and shame me even more._ Linkali flinched, telling herself that he was only saying things like that because of how worried he was; he would certainly apologize for his unintentionally harsh words once she was safe. _Go!_

Closing her eyes tightly, the young woman reached towards her hip. Her hand settled around the hilt of the Master Sword on her first try. Heartened, but not completely trusting of this sudden good fortune, she slowly began to tug the sword free from its sheath. Her hand did not slip, and the blade came out without any sort of trouble. Lin felt a tentative smile start to work its way across her face, and she darted in towards her fallen foe determinedly.

The tail. She had to aim for the tail. Linkali raced closer, her heart surging hopefully in her chest. So far, so good. She ran as hard and fast as she could, raising her left arm to swing down at the beast's weak spot. Time seemed to slow as she watched the silver blade of the Master Sword cut a glittering arc through the raindrops towards its target. The keen edge inched closer and closer, until Lin was certain she was going to watch it slice through Ganon's tail until it hit the stony rubble beneath.

And then, with a speed that seemed blinding by comparison to the slowed-down swing of the Master Sword, Ganon's tail flicked upwards, catching the blade without any harm done and ripping it out of its wielder's hands. Linkali watched, horrified as the sword cartwheeled through the air. It turned end over end through the pouring rain, flashing brightly like a minnow's side as it caught stray glimmers of light. Lin took a single step in its direction, one hand straining towards the sword she could not reach in time. Her breath caught in her throat as the sword tumbled ever closer to a large chunk of stone. She watched, paralyzed with terror, as the edge of the blade slammed against the top of the monolith at an angle.

In the blink of an eye, the Master Sword shattered as though it were made of silver ice, bursting apart in a spray of fragmented steel.

Linkali stared in silent horror, watching the shards of Hyrule's only hope for peace and light raining down to the muddy, rocky ground. The indigo hilt—with just a few inches of steel still clinging to it—thudded down at her feet; it felt as if Fate were insulting her, saying _Here's the sword you need to triumph. Oh, wait—it's broken. Oops. Good luck, hero._ Lin swayed on her feet, feeling as if the ground had suddenly dropped out from under her, only to come rushing back up again a split second later.

Linkali stiffened as the ground began to shake once more. Ganon hadn't been stunned. Her arrow had missed. The young woman realized that she'd been lured in, just as Link had so many years ago. The thought that she had been so easily fooled sickened her, but it did not break her; the burst of hope she had felt moments earlier still burned in her chest as a single, small ember. The Master Sword surely still had its power to repel evil, even though its blade was broken. Lin looked up at her towering adversary, then quickly bent down to pick up the hilt of her sword. The Blade of Evil's Bane—or what remained of it, anyway—purred weakly, almost as if it were in pain, but the fact that it had not fallen silent told her there was still a chance. Not a very good one, but it was better than nothing.

Swiftly, she tucked the broken blade into her belt and turned her back on the approaching beast. She reached for her bow, darting away as fast as she could. Her fingers slipped across the wet, sleek wood, and she cursed softly as Ganon continued to thunder closer. Just as before, she could not grasp her weapons—though not for lack of trying—and she could not seem to outrun her enemy. Heart hammering, she made one last desperate grab for her bow, and mercifully, she managed to grip it. Without missing a beat, she reached back and pulled an arrow, sighing quietly as she grasped one on the first try. She spun on one foot and laid the shaft to her bowstring, quickly trying to grasp her magic and ply it into the arrow. Slowly, a pale glow began to burn around the tip, and as it strengthened, Linkali saw the Evil King raise one dark hand and sweep it towards her.

In the same second the young warrior released her Light Arrow, Ganon's hand slammed into her chest, knocking her off her feet and hurling her back towards the same piece of stone that had, a century and a half ago, ended the life of the Hero of Time.


	29. 28: Storming the Castle

Had Link contemplated the mistakes he'd made, as he'd flown through the air to his own demise so many years ago? Had he thought about the things he regretted, or wondered why he had wound up with the destiny he did? Had there even been enough time for him to consider such things, or was his life over before he could even realize that he was hurtling towards his own death? Those were questions that would almost certainly remain unanswered for all time, and if Linkali knew one thing for certain, it was that _she_ didn't have the time to consider so many things. One instant, she was being hurled towards the rubble that would surely end her life; the next, her entire body jolted as she made impact with what was perhaps the _softest_ stone she had ever encountered in her eighteen years of life. When she opened her eyes, she saw not the inky storm clouds that covered the battlefield, but rather the ceiling above her bed.

Lin lay on her back in a tangle of sweat-dampened sheets. Her heart was pounding so quickly in her chest that there no longer seemed to be any individual beats; it felt as if her heart were simply _vibrating,_ whirring frantically in its place, and that it was fierce and fast enough to shake her entire body. She was breathing like a woman who had just run across several mountains without stopping, gasping for air in broken snatches. Her skin stung with the memory of the icy, pounding raindrops. She lay, disoriented and panicked, for several minutes, until enough sanity finally returned that she was able to push herself up into a seated position amid the twisted covers, cradling her head in her hands.

"Lin?" The Hylian girl felt the familiar weight of her fairy partner come to rest on her shoulder. Navi laid a tiny, warm hand lightly on her cheek. "Lin, what's wrong?" she asked softly.

"Nothing. It…" Linkali exhaled shakily. "It was…just a dream."

A dream. Goddesses, it was just a dream, despite how real everything had felt. She shut her eyes tightly, still shivering and shaking in the wake of it all. Just a dream in which the current reigning champion of her fears had come true: A final showdown against the Evil King in which she failed in nearly every way possible. Her weapons had been impossible to grasp, she had only been able to move at horrifically slow speeds, the Master Sword had been broken—

Lin drew in her breath in a ragged gasp, honest fear flooding her soul-blue eyes. Her arms flailed frantically to the bedside table, where the sheathed weapon leaned. She grabbed the hilt and scabbard—too panicked at the moment to be soothed by its purr—and pulled the sword up into her lap, where she tugged it partway from the sheath. The Master Sword's blade, whole and unmarred, glowed up at her in the faint moonlight; its steady purr grew gentler, as if it were trying to say _Don't worry. I'm fine. You're fine._ Linkali sighed shakily, running her fingers over the steel to reassure herself that it was indeed whole; a few moments later, she slid the blade back into its scabbard, holding it across her lap while she tried to gather her thoughts.

"You dreamed that it broke," Navi observed quietly.

"Among other things, yes," the young woman muttered weakly. Goddesses, if there had ever been a dream that fit the definition of _nightmare_, it was the one she'd just had. Every part of it had been disturbingly real; she still found herself expecting elements of the nightmare to have followed her into waking life. For someone who rarely dreamed in such fullness, the experience was all the more nerve-wracking.

Linkali sighed, pushing herself up from bed. Still holding the Master Sword like a frightened child holds a favorite doll, she padded across the wooden floor to stand in front of her window. With Kokoria tucked so far back into the mountain foothills, it was difficult to see any part of the rest of Hyrule from inside the village, but Lin knew that right now, she was facing Ganon's castle. Was he looking back at her from across Hyrule Field? Was he smirking to himself and wondering what he might do to prolong their battle for his own entertainment? Did he already know what he was going to say and do when she stood face to face with him at last?

_Am I really ready to face him?_

The Hylian youth swallowed hard, closing her eyes and gripping the hilt of the Master Sword tighter. The blade seemed to sense her rising fear; its steady thrumming grew a little louder and more insistent, until it began to drown out her panicked thoughts. Lin, grateful for something to distract her from her fears, didn't fight it. Slowly, her mind filled with that mystic purr. The tremors that had wracked her body stilled. Her frantic heart calmed, and her ragged breathing evened out. She felt Navi's warm weight settle onto her shoulder and smiled tentatively. _Only a dream,_ she told herself. _It was only a dream._ The strong and steady rumble of the Master Sword affirmed this.

As she was preparing to return to bed—hopefully to get better sleep this time around—Linkali heard the soft creak of her bedroom door opening. Curiously, she turned, squinting through the low light at the tiny shadow lurking in the doorway. "Talina?" The shadow sniffled loudly, letting out its breath in a shaky whimper. Lin balked. She'd been right. She stepped towards the door, holding one hand out to her sister. "Tali," she whispered. "Tali, what is it?"

Talina gave a shuddering sob and darted in closer. Linkali quickly set aside the Master Sword, crouching down and wrapping both arms tightly around her little sister. One hand cradled the girl's head gently as Tali broke down crying against her sister's shoulder. Lin pressed her lips together worriedly. "Tali, say something," she whispered. "Tell me what it is."

" 'm s-s-_scared!_" the younger Hylian burst out, clinging tighter to her older sibling. "I don't w-w-want you t' g-go and fight K-King G-G-Ganon!"

_That sort of makes two of us, doesn't it?_ Linkali thought wryly. Truth be told, she almost didn't want to go through with this, but she knew she had to. Hyrule was depending on _her_, and she couldn't skip out now. At the same time, though, there were reasons she had that made her want to fight through and face this final battle, and one of them was currently dampening her shoulder with panicked sobs.

"Come on, kiddo," she murmured, shifting her grip. One arm wrapped around her sister securely, while the other reached for the Master Sword. Lin picked up sister and sword, and moved back towards her bed. She leaned the blade back against her nightstand and set Talina down on the mattress beside her. Cradling her sister's face in her hands, she wiped away some of the girl's tears with the pad of one thumb. "I'm scared, too," she admitted. "I know that what I'm going to do is dangerous, and that I could be badly hurt, or even killed, and that that could happen to anyone who comes with me tomorrow." Tali whimpered with a fresh burst of tears. "But I also know that if I don't do this, so many people will be hurting for years to come. Everyone will have to keep living in fear and darkness."

"But if you…d-d-d…If you don't…" Tali struggled to spit out. Lin sighed.

"If I don't succeed, then yes, the same thing will happen," she admitted. She leaned in closer, pressing a kiss to her sister's forehead. "But, Talina, if I _do_ succeed, then we'll all be free. There will be no more fear or darkness, no more monsters, no more tributes, no more people taken for his armies…People can run around freely, talk about anything they want without worrying about being overheard, and be happier than they could ever have been otherwise." She smiled gently. "And _that_ is something worth taking a risk for. I've done a lot to prepare myself for this, and while I wish I could take _years_ to prepare more, I know that isn't going to work. I just have to trust in myself and what I've learned, and believe that I was chosen for this because I could do it if I tried my best."

Where was this coming from? Linkali wasn't sure. She hadn't been so confident minutes ago, and yet there was something about her sister that was drawing out this courage. The young woman pulled her sister close; Talina snuggled in almost fearfully. "Tali," she said, her voice so strong that it actually startled her a little, "I promise that I will do everything I can to come home from this. I'll do everything in my power to make sure that when the battle is over, you still have a sister who can hold you and talk to you. Do you hear me?" She pulled back, putting a finger under the younger girl's chin and raising her eyes. "I promise."

Tali nodded, sniffling softly. Lin smiled gently. "Good." She pressed a kiss to her sister's forehead, then leaned back and patted the mattress. "Now, come on, lay down. You're sleeping with me tonight, you got that?" Talina smiled weakly in the darkness and settled down. Lin curled around her, holding her close. It wasn't long before the two sisters slipped off into sleep together, a sleep far more restful than either had had so far that night.

* * *

"Who are we still waiting on?" Linkali asked, her eyes scanning the group that had already assembled in the faint, gray light of dawn.

"The smart people, and we'll be waiting a while," Bartal quipped from beside her.

"Very funny," the young woman muttered, casting him a sidelong glance. Her dark eyes flicked over to her other side as her father spoke up.

"Forlan and Gotari went to get Vantal," Hatoren told her. "Aside from them, though? No one." His head shifted side to side slightly as he too glanced over the assembled Hylians. "All willing and able members of HyReCo, waiting to depart."

Lin nodded slowly. Naturally, the entire village had turned out to send off their warriors, though the families of the Coalition's ragamuffin army stood off to one side. The army itself seemed oddly small now that it was preparing to head off to battle; Linkali prayed fervently that it did not get any smaller. She closed her eyes, her hand wrapping around the grip of the Master Sword, letting the blade's mystic voice soothe her before she worked herself up too far. When she opened her eyes again a moment later, she saw that Vantal, flanked by Gotari and his remaining son, had appeared.

The leader of HyReCo looked over the group for a few moments before speaking up. "There is little that can be said that would not sound forcedly optimistic or platitudinous," he said, his thin voice still managing to echo through the quiet village, "so I will be simple and brief: We are proud of you. All of you will be honored for generations untold, your deeds remembered long after you are gone from the earth. We wish you only the best, and we will all watch the village gates eagerly for your return."

The old man glanced around the group again. When he spoke again, his voice had a ring of prayer to it. "With her boundless wisdom, may Nayru guide your feet down the proper path," he intoned. "With her unyielding courage, may Farore strengthen your heart and keep your course steady. And with her infinite power, may Din protect you and bring you safely home again."

_May Din protect you and bring you safely home again._ Linkali balked. She knew that blessing. It was given to travelers when they set off; after clearing the Well, Bartal had said it over her at the village gates. She, and everyone else, knew that the other two Golden Goddesses had once been a part of that prayer, but had long since been dropped in favor of Ganon's patroness; in time, their role in the blessing had faded from memory. No one Lin had ever spoken to could remember the rest of that prayer, and yet…

The youth glanced over to the elderly woman standing beside and slightly behind her. Zelda, for the first time in Linkali's memory, was not wearing a flowing skirt or fine gloves. She had opted instead for a pair of indigo and black riding pants and sturdy leather bracers, with strips of cloth wound around her wrists and forearms for support. She had also pulled on a tawny cowl with ragged edges, on which faint traces of a blue and red insignia remained; it looked as if the garment could be pulled up to cover the lower part of her face, though she had not done so, and the extra fabric was simply bunched up around her neck. Zelda also had dug up a short sword from some unknown corner of her cellar, which was clipped to the back of her belt, as well as a long, cylindrical canister that gave a metallic sort of rattle whenever the old woman moved.

When she felt Lin's eyes on her, Zelda turned. She caught the question in the younger Hylian's eyes and answered with a knowing smile and a nod. Then, she glanced back in the direction of the group, then back again to its leader. Linkali followed her gaze, and saw that everyone had turned to face her and was waiting on her move. Nodding once, she simply said, "Let's go", and turned towards the village gates. She stepped out into the path leading up to Kokoria Village and headed towards what was once a grand castle, with a small army of warriors following behind her.

* * *

For the first few hours after leaving the village, the group had been nearly as silent as the mute elder walking beside its leader. The tension as they walked through the gray and pink dawn was tangible. It was almost as if they still feared discovery by Ganon, and were skulking around and praying that they went unnoticed; they walked with shoulders hunched and eyes flitting about. To see these people—her own warriors—so wary was honestly a little disheartening to Lin, and she wondered if their resolve would crumble and send them scampering back to Kokoria to hide. She tried to be a beacon of courage to them, but frankly, her own worries were weighing her down as well. It wasn't until Bartal, in typical fashion, worked up the nerve to start chattering and clowning around that she and the others were able to relax. They still kept their voices low to avoid attracting the attention of monsters of the field (though before it was all said and done, there had been a number of brief skirmishes with Stalchilds and a few stray Wolfos), but at least they were talking.

The sun was out briefly during the trek across the field, but within a few hours, it gave way to thick, deep cloud cover. When they reached the ruins of Castle Town, a thin drizzle started up. Shelter was not easy to come by amid the rubble and wreckage, but Kokorians were nothing if not resourceful and clever. It took a bit of time and effort, but they were able to construct a few rough shelters from the rubble before the downpour truly began, making a small camp in what had once been a side street where many people had made their homes. Space was somewhat tight, but since she was cramped up between her father and two of her dearest friends, Linkali didn't really complain.

Once the small army was settled in, another silence fell, though not simply because they had broken out the rations and started in on a well-earned dinner. The heavy tension had returned. One only needed to look up to see the looming structure where Ganon lurked. The tower and castle had been rebuilt since their previous collapse, in what Linkali imagined was probably a very similar—if not identical—setup; it sat on the horizon like the shadow of a vulture, watching the decay of Hyrule.

Trying to sleep had not been easy. The ground was hard and unforgiving, and the unnerving shuffle and moan of ReDeads out in what had once been the open-air marketplace set everyone on edge. Lin volunteered to take one of the first watch shifts, a suggestion which was met with an overwhelming veto; she was told bluntly that out of all of them, she would need the most rest to face the challenges ahead. Unwilling to obey, but unable to argue, the young woman slumped against the wall, holding the Master Sword across her lap and trying to get some sleep.

Morning came far too early, a gray and drizzly dawn. The chill of the air seeped into the bones of the sore, stiff Hylians who had spent the night huddled on the ground in clumps. It was hardly a day for courage or glorious battle—if anything, it was a day for sitting inside with a cup of tea and a warm quilt—and some part of Linkali honestly began to wonder if Ganon had somehow learned to control the weather in his realm and was using it to dispirit the tiny army mounting against him. If that were the case, she thought as she looked around at her slow-moving warriors, then it was certainly an effective strategy.

But even if it were true, there was one thing Ganon had not counted on, and that was Bartal. Kokoria's beloved jokester could not be held down for long. Lin watched as the boy seemed to flit around the group like a butterfly in search of nectar, clowning his way from person to person. HyReCo's band of warriors began to stretch the cold stiffness from their muscles and talk amongst themselves, bringing some warmth back into their bodies and hearts. Even Linkali, despite the near-paralyzing anxiety that had been grasping and dragging her around like Imparo's many hands, managed to laugh weakly at her friend's antics. She had to admit, though: She was still fearful of what lay ahead, but she, and the others, would not cower in the face of their fears. _As long as we have you—…No. As long as we have each other, we'll make it through._

* * *

"I really can't see how we're going to make it through now," Lin murmured, looking over at Navi hovering beside her. On her other side, Bartal laughed and crouched down comically to peer over the edge of the drop. Without even blinking, the young warrior bent slightly at the knees and wrapped her hand around the collar of her friend's tunic, just to be safe. Her dark eyes narrowed as they took in the situation before her.

Ganon's tower and castle were visible from a great distance. What _wasn't_ visible from a great distance was the pit of lava it was suspended over_—s_uspended without any sort of bridge, chain, or support beam.

"That doesn't even make sense," the young woman said, shaking her head. "How is it even sitting like that?"

Bartal pushed himself away from the dangerous precipice and looked over his shoulder with a cocky grin. "Magic," he said, drawing out the 'a'. He wiggled his fingers spookily, and he bugged out his eyes and puckered his lips. Linkali was far from amused. She turned away from her friend with a quiet sigh, cradling her head in one hand.

"Bartal, be serious," she hissed, massaging her temples firmly.

"I _am_," the boy insisted. "Well, okay, minus the eye-popping and finger-wiggling." He glanced back over the edge. "Probably some kind of spell or something."

Lin froze, then slowly turned to look back at her friend. "Bartal, I'm sorry, I—" she started to say, only to have him cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"You're nervous," he said calmly, pushing himself up from the ground and moving over to stand closer to her. "It's understandable." He glanced back over his shoulder. "And speaking of magic, I don't suppose you've got a way to get yourself over there, do you?"

"My magic is limited to summoning and banishing, using the Lens of Truth, and making Light Arrows," she replied dully. "I'd need to find someone who has the ability to cast teleportation spells just to _try_ learning, not to mention that actually becoming proficient in such would likely take years of hard work." She sighed. "But of course, there's really no one _in_ Hyrule who I could learn it from, so the point is moot."

"_Lin? Lin, can you hear me?"_

Linkali balked, shock pushing out the growing fear and disappointment in her soul-blue eyes. The voice had seemed to echo from all around her, but her impulse was to look up at the cloudy, dripping skies. "Sa-Saria?" she managed to stutter out awkwardly, though she knew there was no doubt as to who she had just heard.

"_Oh, good!"_ The Kokiri's bright voice rang out once again through the round gorge cut into the red rock. _"So you can hear me! When Rauru told me I'd have to do this—since I was the first Sage whose seal you broke—I wasn't sure if I could. But I guess I can!"_

Lin glanced over her shoulder at HyReCo curiously. There wasn't a member among them who didn't look thoroughly confused, though she wasn't sure if it was because they heard the Forest Sage's voice coming from seemingly nowhere or because their leader was talking to herself. A glance at Zelda revealed that it was the former; the old woman was grinning brightly and looking up at the sky as if there were nothing unusual about a child's voice suddenly filling the air around them.

"_So, are you ready to go?"_

One hand strayed to her hip, grasping the hilt of the Master Sword. The blade's steady song rose eagerly, as if it were begging her to draw it and leap into battle. Linkali smiled weakly. "As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," she said.

"_Oh, come on, be more confident!"_ Saria urged. _"Look at you! You've got all your friends there behind you—hi there, by the way! I'm Saria!—and they aren't going to abandon you. They've been working just as hard as you have, and they're going to do great!"_

Lin looked back at the small army behind her. Many of the warriors looked rather unsure about being called out by some strange, cheerful voice that had no obvious source, but others seemed almost amused or even heartened by how optimistic and confident Saria sounded. _No one can be anything but happy around you for long,_ the would-be Hero thought, shaking her head. Even she was starting to feel more energized, her worries starting to drain away.

"_So let me ask you again, Lin: Are you ready to go?"_

"Yes!" the youth called back, grinning broadly.

"_All _right_! That's the Lin I know!"_ The Kokiri's giggling was like a scattering of golden summer sunlight amid the rain and gloom. _"There's no reason for you not to believe in yourself and your friends!"_

"Thank you." Lin didn't know if Saria would hear that quiet murmur or not, but she spoke it anyway. She would be surprised if the child had gone on this tangent solely for the purpose of buoying up her and her warriors. Saria wasn't the sort to speak to someone just to encourage them; it was much more likely that, upon hearing how hesitant Linkali was, she'd taken a moment to reassure her.

The Forest Sage laughed again. _"You're all going to do great, I just know it!"_ she assured them. _"As long as you keep your heads up and believe in yourselves, you can do anything. Even when things look hopeless, just remember that."_

Linkali looked back at the assembled group of warriors, her heart soaring higher still when she saw the effect Saria's unintentional pep talk had had on them. Men and women who had started their morning silent and nervous were starting to burst with confidence. Some had turned to their fighting partner and were chatting, laughing and commenting on how strange—and how heartening—it was to hear a voice from on high encouraging them. She looked back up towards the sky, squinting against the rain, which was starting to pick up slowly. "Thank you, Saria," she said, louder this time.

"Yeah, thanks," Bartal echoed. While the rest of the group behind them added their own thanks, the boy added in a joking tone, "I suppose we just keep our chins up and let our self-belief make a bridge over the lava for us, then?"

"_Oh! No, don't do that! You'll fall into the lava and get burned up!"_ Saria's laughter rang out around them again. _"I'm sorry, I got sidetracked. I was going to tell Lin that the rest of the Sages and I were going to make a bridge for all of you to cross over."_

"Fantastic!" Bartal grinned up at the sky. "Sounds great!"

"_It'll be really nice-looking, too,"_ Saria told him. _"At least, the last one was—it was all rainbow-colored and shimmering—and we're going to be using the same kind of focus for our magic this time around, so this one should be pretty, too."_

" 'This time around'?" Bartal asked.

"_Well, we did this once before for Link,"_ the girl pointed out. _"Back when _he_ was going to fight Ganon. Of course, once we all sealed ourselves away, the magic dissipated, so we have to put it back in place for you all."_

"Who's 'we'?" Lin couldn't help but be startled when her father spoke up, his eyes on the sky as well. "The rest of the…Sages?"

"_Yeah! There's six of us—seven if you count Zelda, and you should because she's our leader—and it's…"_ Her voice trailed off into silence, and remained quiet for several minutes. _"I'm not playing around!" _she burst out suddenly; Linkali, and several others, jumped. _"…W-well, I _know_ we have to—…I _know_, okay? I'm just…Oh, fine. Fine. I know. I'll get on it, okay? ...No, no more chattering. I'm sorry, I just got distracted."_

"Saria?"

"_Lin?"_ The Sage of Forest's voice had a very sheepish edge to it. _"Ruto's telling me to stop playing around, and Impa's giving me this really impatient look, so…I think we're going to get on that bridge now, okay? And I have to stop talking to you to help with that."_

"All right." Linkali bit down on her laughter as best she could; she could hear those behind her chuckling and murmuring amongst themselves. "Will we hear from you again?"

"_Oh! I hope so! …Hey, Impa?" _There was a few moments of silence. _"Nnn…not likely,"_ Saria admitted, sounding disappointed. _"Impa says I'd only distract you if I kept talking while you're fighting through Ganon's fortress, and I don't want to distract you because then something bad might happen because you were paying more attention to me than your surroundings, and it would be my fault. So—"_ She snapped off her next sentence, and after a moment of silence, added indignantly, _"O-_kay_, o-_kay_, Ruto! Scrubs, it's not like I'm not doing this on purpose to tick you off or anything! You know me! You know how I get when I'm talking to friends!"_

"Saria, I think it might be best if you—"

"_No, Ruto! I can do this, I swear! I'm _supposed_ to do it! Rauru said so! Just…Look, okay, I'll do it right now! No need to get so snippy! …Yes, I really _am_ going to do it now. Just watch me, okay?"_

It was clear that no one other than Lin, Zelda, or Navi knew just who Saria was talking to, but that didn't matter. Everyone could hear that someone—in fact, a couple of someones—was getting impatient with the easily-distracted child, and that in the process of defending herself, Saria was getting even more distracted from the intended goal. Laughter made the air ring warmly, a rich and welcome sound that lightened the heavy air.

"_Hey, Lin? We're gonna get the bridge in place now."_ Saria asked. _"Which means I'm going to have to go, okay? Good luck! You're going to do great—all of you! Just trust in all the hard work you've put in so far and Ruto I _know_. I'm wrapping it up now, okay?"_ She huffed out her breath impatiently. _"All right. I'm going. Ruto's got her hand behind my head now, and I think she's going to smack me if I don't—"_

The child's voice cut off sharply in a startled yip. A moment later, a rather different voice addressed them. _"Lin?"_

"Yes, Ruto?"

"_Hold tight. We'll have the bridge set up for you in just a moment."_

The small army was still chuckling, though their laughter tapered off into silence rather quickly when the Sage of Water made good on her promise. Orbs of colored light—red, blue, orange, and others—rained down from the dark sky, falling and settling in the air between the cliff and Ganon's castle. There was a blinding flash of pure, white light. When it faded away, a glimmering bridge made of what honestly looked to be rainbow light had formed, spanning the gap. Linkali stepped forward, setting her boot on the edge of the bridge. She leaned her weight down onto that foot, nodding and looking back at HyReCo behind her.

Hatoren took a single step towards his daughter and drew his blade. In a steady wave of movement, the rest of the group readied their weapons. There was tension in the air, but also excitement. They could very well be crossing this bridge to meet their deaths. They might never come home. They might never see their loved ones again. In following the Hero's Incarnation, they had signed their names in blood and committed themselves to her service. Weapons at the ready, the group followed their young leader across the Sages' bridge.

When her feet touched the ground on the other side, Linkali felt a strange stirring within her. Vaguely, there was the déjà-vu she'd come to expect from places the Hero had once visited, but stronger was a steady thrumming deep inside her. The vibration was familiar; its strength was not. The young woman glanced down at her left hand, a slight frown creasing her forehead. The hum spiked again as she felt a hand settle onto her shoulder. She looked over at Zelda for a few moments while the rest of the group finished crossing over. Silently, the bearers of Courage and Wisdom looked up to the tower than reared over their heads, their expressions equally grim.

"Lin?" The youth turned to see Gotari approaching her. "We follow your lead."

Linkali took in a deep breath, nodding once. Zelda stepped back, lowering her hand. The young woman gave her little army one last look over, wondering fleetingly how many of them would never see Kokoria's hills again, before nodding again. She faced Ganon's castle with stubborn pride, her chin lifted, her shoulders level.

_Here we go._ The young woman clenched her right hand into a fist, her left gripping the unsheathed, eagerly-snarling Master Sword all the tighter. She nodded once to herself and strode forward determinedly, leading her allies into the greatest danger of their lives.


End file.
